


Evanesce

by minkmix



Category: Naruto
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Iruka, M/M, Protective Kakashi, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture, semi- etablished relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: Iruka arrives back to the Hidden leaf after a simple but failed mission to investigate an abandoned shrine. Little by little, he realizes that maybe there was more to the mission than he'd thought. And those closest to him start to notice the same.





	1. Evanesce

*

Iruka was in the middle of nowhere in a snowed filled wasteland.

The ice slick rock was much harder to traverse than the forests he was accustomed to. He grimaced as another blast of wind struck mid-leap, causing him to alight ungracefully on the edge of a cliff. It figured that he made perfect sense for a mission like this. 

After all he had earned himself a small reputation for knowing more than the average of his age and experience. Most things that didn't include weapons he had learned on his own, spending long nights in the musty libraries pouring over everything from chakra paper infusion to the mystic chemistry of various inks of all Nations. As he got older the Third permitted him almost free reign in the less restricted levels of the Konoha archives stored deep beneath the Hokage mountain. The higher ups caught wind of his knowledge when it came out in the classrooms under his care. Which was why he was now traveling through the snow capped mountains on the Iron border and wishing he wasn't.

Sighing shortly, Iruka consulted his maps to confirm his position.

The Academy was on an extended winter hiatus. The mission room position could always be filled with other available Tower chunin. All of that and his well recognized tenacity presented him as an obvious candidate for a long term non-combat assignment. That and the fact that he was more or less considered completely expendable should things go unexpectedly south. 

He didn't take it personally. 

It wasn’t so easy to pinpoint the exact location of the shrine, even using the detailed maps he'd been provided. Old shrines peppered the northern borders, particularly in the outskirts where villages became more remote and faith more a daily part of life. This region was in a perpetual freeze, surrounded by ridges howling with numbing winds that burned his throat and lungs. As he climbed, the altitude change brought his breath shorter and faster but he’d been prepared for that. What he was not prepared for was the wind to gradually reside and be replaced by an unnatural fog.

"This can't be good," he muttered to himself.

His mind hummed with caution as the gloom enveloped him, feeling like he'd been swallowed whole by the white silence. For a time he could see nothing but a short distance in front him, enough to gain handholds in the rock's crevices to steadily continue upwards. Climbing carefully up a steep rise he suddenly spotted the landmark above him, appearing and disappearing through the thinning frigid mist. 

"Finally," Iruka panted in relief, his forehead resting on his forearm. "Finally..."

Some winding stone stairs had been gashed into the side of bedrock ran thick with veins of blue ice. Not that he needed them. It was easy now to cut through the crisp air and gain ground until he landed in a crouch before the towering gate. 

Most gates were painted bright red and maintained in some way by locals. This one, like its craggy staircase, was weather-beaten and crumbling. At one time it may have been gilded, Iruka noted, the peeling of dried colored varnish. Some might call the scene sad but he called it well used. 

The shrine itself was the very definition of abandoned. 

Who was this shrine dedicated to? It was very possible the place was so old, that even the ageless deity it was built for had overlooked its existence. Iruka examined the exterior carefully, searching for any indication or symbols. But there were none to be seen. The frozen wood carvings were splintered and cracked, the stone foundations claimed by drifts of gritty snow. Iruka couldn't help but wonder at the glimmer that shone off the sheen of ice. It coated this once majestic structure making it into a thing of glass. 

Shrines of this nature were less for prayers and more for housing the sacred, be they spirit or sacrament. 

Just because the shrine was dead on the outside did not mean it was empty. 

Chakra, buried deep in its roots, hummed to life when he reached out a hand to lay flat against its side. Iruka frowned. It was as if something had awoken at his fingertips. Inside the shrine the ice glittered less brilliantly, dull and humid. Offerings had been left here long ago and forgotten. Scattered by animals or time. The packed earth floor was muddy and coated in places with thick bluish moss along with the sweet sickening scent of firewood gone to rot. It was warmer in here, the chamber's only object revealed as a small stone vault emitting chakra like a small hidden shard of sunlight. Iruka peered closer. There plastered across its exterior lay a single yellowed strip of paper, marked with the unmistakable slashes and script of the ninjutsu.

Iruka cocked his head to the side, his breath fogging and hanging in the still air. 

“Found you.” He spoke to it. 

The report had been accurate. This was far from a standard seal and even among rarities, not described in any of his texts. In fact, he had never seen one even remotely close to it. At first glance, it might have be taken for a binding seal if not for the color of the strange ink. Dark blood red and magnetic to the chakra threads forming it. 

Many seals were primarily combinations and nuances of other individual patterns but he'd never seen this particular configuration before. He also knew that despite this development he could break it regardless. It would just take a little longer than expected. 

Unfortunately he didn't think that would mean days. 

It was nice in terrible kind of way. Isolation wasn't something he thought he could sustain indefinitely but it brought a certain kind of ease. He could focus on the seal even with cold numb fingers, concentrate on his chakra and the brittle books he'd brought in his storage scrolls. There were no distractions and several different people asking several things from him at once. He was thinking about how just how much of his life was spent juggling around the lives of others that he almost missed it when the seal began to sizzle, the retreating crimson characters sparking, chasing each stroke of kanji like a fuse and melting into ash. 

"Here goes nothing..." 

He'd already set up wards in case there was something man eating or worse inside but all of the usual prelims to check had read negative. Everything was in the clear. Iruka had already jumped back a safe distance, his hand clutching a kunai. Oddly enough, no release of blades, burning fire, or bizarre chakra were unfurled. It was almost a disappointment. He waited several heart beats, ignoring the tight grip he held on his weapon. Still nothing. But then with a dull cracking boom the stone lid on the vault split down its center. Iruka stared in breathless hope. His arms flew up to cover his face when the slab abruptly exploded outwards sending grit and shards billowing across the chamber. 

Iruka stood carefully from his defensive crouch. 

Had he done it? Iruka breathed a laugh and coughed on the thick dust. He had. It was finished. The seal was broken. 

He could retrieve what was inside and finally get out of this forsaken ice box. 

With a thrill of excitement, he carefully knelt down to peer into the vault he'd been dealing with for days and nights on end. But then, as he searched he instantly felt his insides lurch. Making a small sound of confusion, he passed a hand through its small confines, fingers checking the rock seams and surfaces. 

"No....no, no, no, no!" 

The compartment the seal had been protecting was empty. Sagging back on his heels he simply stared at the vacant space in disbelief. 

Iruka wished he wasn't alone then. Because he felt like killing someone. 

 

*****

 

He first noticed it as he made the long journey back to the Leaf. 

It wasn't because it hurt more or appeared any differently from the usual bruises and scratches one tended to get when travelling via any means other than the ground with roads. Iruka just had no idea how he could have gotten a scratch that severe on that part of his arm. Pausing to rest on a high frost dusted branch, he rolled up his sleeve to examine the dull ache. There was a cut that went straight across the crease on the delicate skin inside of his right elbow. There were several others on his forearms that he knew were from whipping nin speed through the underbrush but this one was deeper. Flexing his fist, he didn't like how it was exactly where he'd have to feel it all of the time. With a shrug, he shouldered his pack and forced the minor distraction to the back of his mind. 

If that was all the worry he had to bring back from a mission he counted himself one ridiculously lucky man. 

 

*****

 

As soon as he'd arrived through the village gates nine days overdue he'd gone immediately to his empty apartment instead of the Tower. The season was hovering on the edge of winter so it wasn't a surprise that he found his home as cold as it was outdoors. Dozens upon dozens of old books, manuscripts, and countless sheaths of yellowed paper used to prepare for the assignment were scattered all over the tables and floor. A few panes of glass in the windows were cracked for some reason. There were dishes still sitting in the sink. The air was stale and the power was out. And the appalling sight of it all was one of the best things he'd seen in a long time. He headed straight to the bathroom and slammed on the currently frigid spray of the shower. It took some time to peel layer after layer of cold weather gear off his body. After spending weeks of living in the shrine's dank interior of rotted moss, slushy mud, and decay it had all eventually started to mold his uniform. And the smell? Iruka gagged on a dry heave as he realized it was even worse now that he was in closed quarters. 

"This," Iruka dropped the last of it onto the soggy pile on the floor. "...can be burned." 

Too bad he couldn't toss himself into an incinerator too. 

Well, he had the next best thing. Looking miserably at the shower he reminded himself that clean was clean. Gasping when the biting water struck the skin of his back, he numbly fumbled for the soap and started scrubbing vigorously. As the frigid onslaught soaked into his hair he tried very hard not to bite his tongue off between chattering teeth. Not lingering for long he grabbed a towel and began to think about what to do first. Eat something? Try to get his heat back on? Go to the Tower? Or lay down and just breathe? 

"Just a few minutes," Iruka assured no one as he sunk down onto his futon, shivering his way into his warmest and thickest blanket. "Then I'll report to the...the..." 

As good as his intentions were, he knew as soon as his head hit the pillow that a fifth option had won. 

 

 

He didn't get to doze long before two furry summons appeared, one genin came to his door, and he came to realize he could see his own breath fog in front of his face while indoors. Pushing loose damp hair away from his eyes, he grimly decided that getting the power back on probably should have been his first priority. After the fourth summons he gave up entirely and made the bed. It was a hawk this time who politely left yet another scroll on his window sill before even more politely swooping away. Those guys at the Tower sure wanted an update. Too bad Iruka didn't have much to tell them. Actually less than nothing because that was exactly what the seal had been guarding. And then there was the urgent request from Izumo. Which had not so much to do with any potentially useful new seals and infinitely more urgent if Iruka had any say in anything. 

Which he didn't. 

He dug out a clean uniform and concentrated on the task at hand, his jaw trembling in an effort to keep his teeth from rattling out of his head. He paused with his shirt hanging in his hands. There had been no time to do it in the shower, he had wanted to get out from under the ruthless blast of ice as quickly as possible. But now... He held out his right arm, palm up to examine it. 

Iruka frowned at the shallow cut inside his elbow, experimentally rotating his forearm to gauge the discomfort. 

It was more annoying than painful. Iruka grimaced as he started to pull on his turtleneck. No. Nope. He was very wrong. Extremely wrong. He decided it actually did hurt as much as it was troublesome. The wound was exactly where he'd feel it whenever he did anything with that arm except keeping it straight down at his side. When he wasn't moving his arm it still ached enough for him to be constantly aware of it. He flexed his fist a few times wondering vaguely why the salve he'd used wasn't numbing it as well as it had the other minor abrasions. 

Distracted, he almost missed the subtle shift in the air behind him and a slight deliberate sound. Iruka went still for a moment before he relaxed. Back in town for no more than a handful of hours and so many visitors already. 

"You're late." 

Iruka didn't turn around at the sound of the voice. But Kakashi was correct. A week and two days late. He had, after all, sent word to Lady Tsunade many days prior to warn of his delay and was expected more or less at the time when he finally caught sight of the perimeter walls. Even if the Hokage had been promptly alerted about his extended time in the field, he was pretty sure the jounin had gotten hold of that information before the message had even reached her hands. He finished getting dressed and managed to pull his hair up into a tight ponytail despite his cramped fingers. 

"I got held up." Still facing the frost laced window, Iruka was attempting to tie on his hitai-ate. It took two tries, he couldn't stop shaking. 

"It's a bit chilly in here." 

"Is it?" Iruka asked. "I hadn't noticed." 

"Hm." 

Iruka zipped up his vest. "The seal took longer than I thought it would." It came out sounding like an apology. Maybe it was. He still hadn't turned to look at Kakashi. The presence of any shinobi was like a shimmering heat he could usually sense if not physically feel. With the jounin is was even more so. But Iruka felt nothing from the man behind him. It seemed the Copy nin had sent a copy in his stead. 

"Was it fun?" Kakashi's provoking smile was in his voice. 

"You should have seen all the snow ball fights."

"By yourself."

"Well, at least I always won."

The ice bath hadn't helped with the stiffness in his muscles and much less with his mood. But it felt good to hear Kakashi’s voice after so long of hearing none at all. After he checked his vest pockets, he finally turned around to grant the clone of the jounin a small, if not exhausted, smile. "I found a seashell tho? On the way back. Right in the middle of a forest." 

One pale eyebrow raised. Kakashi studied Iruka from his lean in the bedroom doorway. He should have known Kakashi wouldn't be fascinated by said seashell which was stashed somewhere in his muddy jacket still crumpled on the bathroom floor. Along with a peculiar pinecone and a piece of igneous rock roughly shaped like a triangle. Oh, and an iridescent feather from a bird he couldn't identify. To counter Kakashi’s silence, he figured he'd elaborate.

"I thought that when classes started up again the students could use some samples on how to identify foreign objects in an environment that would indicate--" 

Kakashi cleared his throat, confirming that yes, he could give less than a damn about any fun forest finds. But Iruka knew well enough what the other was waiting for. He might as well give in and assuage Kakashi’s heavily ingrained and all prevailing sense of caution. 

"Non-combat mission, remember?" Iruka tried. "C-Rank." Less than a D, he mused, if any rank under that should ever exist. 

Kakashi continued to stare. With a short exhale of defeat, Iruka decided to drop all pretense and held his arms out in only mild exasperation. 

"No injuries," he answered the question that was not being asked outloud. "Just need some sleep." 

"So go back to bed." 

Iruka checked his sigh. He shouldn't feel surprised that Kakashi was well aware he had been trying to get some rest just a short while ago. Were there any wards in the world that could keep the man out of anywhere he didn't want him to be? 

"Mission room is down three people," he explained. "Izumo asked." More like begged. His co-worker had sent a nervous genin to the door with a desperate written plea and promises of any newborns Izumo may have in the future. "I can't let him handle it all, half the assignments will end up on the moon.” He wanted to groan nearly at the thought of it. “Besides, I still have to deliver my own report." 

"That can wait." 

Iruka was well aware of Kakashi's lackadaisical philosophy on that particular subject. 

"You've been back for less than four hours." 

"An entire four?" Iruka asked. "I must be slacking." 

Kakashi made to step forward but Iruka raised his hand to stop him.

"You know the rule," he said blandly. 

" _The Rule_ ," Kakashi sighed in mild frustration. "Sensei, you and your _rules_..."

"Unless, I've been gone so long it just slipped your mind?"

"No contact for the clones." Kakashi had at least some decency to look slightly ashamed.

"So you do remember."

Unthwarted, Kakashi began to move towards him again armed with a silent plea. As incredibly moving the display was, Iruka had seen this ploy often enough to know when to shut it down.

"Forget it," he firmly shook his head. "Not so much as a handshake."

"You know..." Kakashi dropped the act with a lopsided grin. "...your adventurous travels out in the cruel world have made you so heartless."

"Thank you."

There was a huff of a laugh behind the mask and a dismissive gloved hand before Kakashi popped into a small cloud of smoke. Looking at the empty doorway where a Kakashi had just been seconds before, Iruka's tired smile turned into a slightly brighter one.

"Nice to see you too." 

He gathered up his things and headed out, letting the winter air wake him up. His smile grew as he felt energy he didn't know he still had start to return in his flagging limbs. Glancing back over his shoulder he took in the bustling street behind him. Despite the weather it was filled with scent of grilled meat from the food stalls and the chatter of bundled mothers doing the shopping with even more bundled children. Things he hadn't been a party to for so many weeks. His smile deepened into something like content. It was good to be home.

The smile turned thoughtful as he weaved his way through the distracted pedestrians. 

As for Kakashi...

Iruka had no problem waiting for the real thing. No problem at all.

 

*****

 

The debrief he delivered had been just that--brief. As soon as it was known that the seal had hidden nothing of import, which in Iruka's estimation seemed gratuitous because there was literally nothing of anything, all interest in his mission evaporated. The only people left in the room were the specialists that wanted his notes on how he had used safety wards beforehand, and the configuration of the seal itself. After that, the only question left was why the seal had been locked there at all. Iruka had barely opened his mouth with his own theories before it was clearly stated that the mundane riddle was theirs to solve and not the chunin's. So, having been given a Thank You and a You Can Get Out Now, he wandered in a slight daze towards the mission room which was only one floor below. 

It sounded pretty rowdy in there. For it was not often one could hear clear and complete shouted conversation from the corridor. 

Taking a deep breath, he swung open the door and plunged into the chaos. 

"Iruka!" Izumo practically shed tears at the sight of him. "I know you just checked in but-" 

"It's fine, " Iruka held up a hand to stop him and grinned with what he was sure would appear to be a reassurance. "Just tell me where we're at." 

It was almost like walking back into his apartment. Messy and familiar. But thankfully much warmer. By nightfall the state of things had gone down from chaos to a tenuous level of barely controlled mayhem. The filing was in such shambles that Iruka returned the next day and then again the day after that. Not many of the chunin noticed it was so soon after his extended mission and the weary jounin that filed in with their reports could have cared less. 

Genma, however, seemed annoyed at seeing Iruka on dispatch. In fact he had been looking at him oddly the entire day.

"Tsunade didn't give you any leave? You’re entitled, you know." He was leaning in a half seat on the desk and not doing much of anything. Genma did a lot of that in his free time. That sitting around doing nothing thing. Iruka wasn't sure why he usually did it in and around the Tower of all places but what a jounin did for kicks was none of his business. 

"I was undoing one seal," Squeezing his eyes shut, he rubbed at the scar across his nose. "Not fighting the Mist." 

His comrade merely shrugged. 

Focusing on the ledger in front of him, he absently pushed at the inside of his arm. He'd treated the cut as he should have but it was still irritating him. Every time he reached up to receive a scroll it burned, and every time he brought his arm back to rest at the table it stung just as badly. Sometimes if he moved particularly fast, the pain shot right up into his wrist. Like it did right then. With a small intake of breath, his hand spasmed and a scroll report clattered loudly onto the desk. The tall jounin who had handed it over narrowed his eyes in contempt and slight disgust. As he left, Iruka was glad there was no one behind him in the dwindling lines. 

"What was that?" the bobbing senbon in Genma's mouth stilled.

"Huh? Oh, nothing." Iruka absently gripped at his wrist and quickly placed the scroll neatly into a stack with the others. "Don't you have a home?" 

Genma's skeptical expression stayed in place. "Sure," he glanced up at the clock knowing the work schedule better than most of the chunin that were actually were supposed to be there. "Don't you?" 

Iruka blinked when he realized the time. It couldn't possibly be that late. He was half way into a double shift and was supposed to have left hours ago. 

"I-I should get going," he stammered, quickly checking his table was in order. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow." 

Holding up a small black lacquered scroll, Genma tapped it against his own temple. "Mission tomorrow." 

"I see." Iruka said. "I didn't know any A-Rank were going out this week." 

Genma tilted his head. "You were there when the Hokage assigned it this morning." 

Iruka suddenly didn't feel very good. 

"Everything okay Iruka-sensei?" 

Before he could answer that excellent question, he detected the presence of Lady Tsunade, entering the room more quietly than usual and flanked by two ANBU bodyguards. She said nothing, only gave a look that meant Genma should join her in her private offices. With a sigh, Genma pushed off from the desk and uncrossed his arms. "Duty calls. See you around." 

Iruka managed a weak smile he hoped could be translated to Good Luck or Be careful. As they exited undoubtedly to discuss the A-Rank, Iruka gathered his belongings as fast as he could without looking as if he were in too much of a hurry. He wanted to go home. Tea. Food. Some sleep. That's all he needed. 

 

*****

 

It wasn't much of a surprise to Iruka that the quiet rest he craved was not going to happen. As soon as he opened his door he knew he wasn't alone even though none of the lights had been turned on. He took a moment to revel in the heated gush of air against his frozen face. Behind him everything was muted in dim purple twilight, the flat blanket of clouds above washed out and stark with a faint metallic scent that promised snow. 

"I'm home." 

Carefully resetting the key seals in the entryway, he extended his withered chakra to recheck the wards he’d set on the windows and perimeters before feeling satisfied enough to enter. Stepping inside he realized all the curtains had been drawn to blot out the glow of street lamps and swathe the apartment in pitch black. 

It wasn't as though Kakashi had some freakish habit of sitting alone in the dark for hours staring into space but he did know that the senior jounin had specific requirements for his own downtime. And there was no doubt of his legitimacy this time because no clone he knew of emanated _that_ make of languid energy. Iruka couldn't recall when he first noticed he could sometimes easily spot a clone. Until he saw others with more far more skill unable to do so, he hadn't thought much about it.

Turning on a dim lamp in the corner, Iruka stepped noiselessly past the man lying in a comfortable sprawl in the sag of his old sofa. Besides all of the blankets Iruka owned, he noted the uniform gone with just the usual sleeveless singlet and mask attached. The jounin had been here for a while and, judging from the creases on his visible face, he'd been sleeping. Iruka hoped the soft yellow lamp was easier to wake to than the bright sodium kitchen lights he usually used. 

"Working hard?" Kakashi stretched slowly without sitting up. 

"Lots of activity at the borders," Iruka didn't attempt to stifle his yawn. The sight of the jumbled up fleece at the jounin's feet and the warmth roiling off the dull orange coils on the heater was making him even sleepier than he already was. "They're sending an A-Rank tomorrow." Kakashi most definitely knew that already but he said it anyway.

"Hm." 

It had been two days since his return to the village and he'd only briefly seen a Kakashi once on the morning he’d had to rush to perform damage control at the Tower. Of course Kakashi wasn't going to say it. But the fact lingered in the silence between them. Two days and Iruka had barely been home. 

"Are you hungry?" Iruka had food somewhere. The stuff that came out of bags and cans but he wasn't up for much more. 

"No." 

"Tea?" 

"Yes, please." 

Iruka turned at the odd way Kakashi had added the 'please'. It was so reserved it sounded like a whisper not truly meant for him to hear. Having pulled himself up among the mess of pillows and cushions, Kakashi blinked up sleepily at him. The look wasn't expectant, angry or annoyed. It was faintly hopeful but mostly smug. How Kakashi managed to convey these two things at once made Iruka’s face warm despite himself. With one finger he tugged down the mask until he found an upper lip. Holding the jounin's chin, Iruka tipped the pale face up and grazed his cheek against the sleep warm one under him. Kakashi's body slowly tensed under his touch, his hand going carefully to the back of Iruka's thigh, the other resting into a light grip on Iruka's hip. 

"After the tea." 

Kakashi sighed softly in disappointment. The smug left his smile, leaving only hope remaining.

"Need to set the wards," Iruka looked back at his front door. Key seals were the only thing that kept a village full of nin out of your silver. If he had actually had any. "Then I'll put some water on-" A hand caught his wrist as he started to move away. 

"Oi, sensei." 

"What?" 

"I believe you did that already." 

"Oh..." 

Iruka stared at him for a moment and let out a small laugh. Of course he had. Genma might have been right about taking a day off. All he’d accomplished today was distraction. Granted, Kakashi had been trained to be nothing but a series of dangerous diversions so he wasn't quite sure if attempting to reset already set wards was that much of a slip up. He ground his palms into his eyes and shook his head at himself. 

"Right. Tea."

Kakashi hadn't asked him not to but Iruka didn't switch on the overhead glare of the kitchen lights. He was very aware of the nin's honed perceptivity to light in general. Most especially, like now, when his sensitive left eye was uncovered. The gold glow of the faded lampshade in the living room seemed better suited to the quiet and calm. It was peaceful like he hoped the jounin's sleep had been.

The kettle needed to be filled and he made sure to top it off so he'd have some left for instant noodles afterwards. Kakashi had said he wasn't hungry but if he prepared the next morning’s miso soup in advance tonight, he might eat some. As he lifted the pot from the sink, he suddenly felt a white hot jolt shoot through his arm. With a hiss he dropped the kettle, wincing at the flare of pain and the sound of copper clanking back into the sink. That same spot. Again. Damn it. Ignoring the dull sparks that were running back and forth down his forearm, he gritted his teeth and picked the kettle back up. Jaw still clenched, he lit the gas stove and tried very hard not to feel like Kakashi wasn't watching him for any other reason than usual. 

"...Iruka?" 

He stopped the question in its tracks by holding up two tins of loose tea. 

"Kombucha or Genmaicha?"

 

*****

 

Waking up alone wasn't anything new. 

But, as more often than not, beside him on the bedside table there was a ceramic cup of coffee with a stamp sized seal that had kept it warm and steaming. When he arrived at the mission room for duty he became glad Kakashi had ended up interrupting his need for solitude the previous evening. Because almost as soon as he had walked through the door he overheard the tense buzz of voices discussing the unexpected missions sent out earlier. Three more A-Rank and one S-Rank had been dispatched before dawn. As soon as he heard those words, Iruka knew the reason why the jounin had showed up when he had. Iruka used his limited access to at least find out a little about the recent A-Ranks and found no timetable for the assignments. No one seemed to know anything about the S-Rank.

He probably would not see Kakashi again for quite some time. 

Izumo gave him a half smile. "I bet you miss the Academy on weeks like these, huh?" 

Iruka smiled absently back. S-Rank. He'd been watching the room to see which jounin he knew weren't out on assignment as of yesterday. Watching to see who wasn't around. Who might have gone out on missions in the dark of the morning with no timetables. Not that it mattered. There was no way of telling who was where, when or why unless you were Hokage. 

"Okay," he braced himself and took in the teetering stack of scrolls before him. "Let's get started shall we?" 

 

*****

 

 

A week and a half came and went before the first A-Rank team returned intact. Another four days later the other two A-Rank teams straggled in, both missing a member from each of their cells. Gossip around the Tower was that it had been an extraordinary miracle that any of them had made it back at all considering the flurry of unchecked skirmishes in the north. Iruka half listened to the rumors. How the absent team members had been killed, been captured or reported as missing nin. Conjecture after any disaster was a Leaf shinobi's favorite morbid past time. All Iruka knew was that Kakashi was not on any of the teams and the S-Rank had still not returned. 

"Iruka! Hey, Iruka!" Kotetsu had jogged up to walk beside him. "Genma is back. He had to check in at the hospital but they're releasing him today." 

"I heard," Iruka nodded, feeling grateful all over again even if it was second hand news. "I heard Riichi was being released too." 

"Yeah," the chunin grinned. "We're taking them out tonight. Get 'em drunk and get the low down." 

Iruka never quite understood why everyone lived to swap their war stories. Maybe it was because the stories he heard in only brief snatches and murmurs came from one that didn't find all aspects of the life they lived to be anything worthy of pride. Let alone romanticized. He knew there were many more unspoken reasons besides a mutual attachment to Naruto that defined whatever it was that tied him and the Copy nin together. He preferred to imagine that one of them was a primary understanding-- dedication meant sacrifice. Not wanton glorification. 

"You want to come?" 

"I can't," Iruka feigned regret. "I have so much to catch up on before the Academy opens again." 

"Maaaa, yer no fun sensei," Kotetsu joked. "Well, I'll fill you on the good stuff tomorrow!" 

Iruka watched him bound up the stairs and clutched his mission ledger closer to his side. He had no intention of being anywhere but home this evening on the statistically high chance of Kakashi appearing wounded on his doorstep rather than the doorstep of the hospital. Looking out the window, he was on a high enough floor to see the village gates. It wasn't as if he hadn't performed this kind of private vigil before. Many times the jounin had been away for just as long or more. 

But he always came back. 

Iruka paused in the Tower stairwell, a wave of nausea making him reach for the railing. He let out a soft groan as the wound on the inside of his arm pulsed before settling back into the usual ache. 

"Come on," he growled to himself. "Get it together." 

With a deep breath he continued to the next floor and made his way down the curve of the hall. He was late for his shift because he’d gone to the clinic to have his arm checked again. It still bothered him but he had been assured it wasn't infected and he should just keep using the salve and try not to irritate it. Medi-nin seemed not to be able to do much more than say that. They were as confused as he was frustrated at what little affect their healing chakra seemed to have. But despite their suggestion, it was nothing he was about to go running to the Hokage about any time soon. The lingering scratch was an inconvenience, not a set of broken legs. 

Time to get back to work. 

Reaching his destination, his hand hovered uncertainly over an unexpected set of elaborate door latches. Looking up he paused in confusion. This wasn't the mission room. Staring at the unfamiliar set of double doors, a sick feeling started at the back of his throat and sank down to the pit of his stomach. His arm throbbed in time with his heart beat as he backed up a step. 

"Iruka-sensei?" 

A gentle voice startled him. 

"O-Oh, Shizune-san," he managed. "Good morning." 

"Good morning," she glanced back and forth between him and the doors. "Were you here to see Ibiki-sama?" 

Iruka felt his mouth open and close again. 

"He isn't in his tower offices today," she said. "He's is uh... currently offsite with Inoichi-sama." 

Ibiki-sama? Inoichi Yamanaka? 

"No? No, I was just... I was going... I was just leaving." 

Before Shizune could question him any further he turned and practically stumbled away heading back to the staircase. The T&I admin offices? Those were on the top floor. He never went to the top floor unless he was passing it in on the flight of stairs to get to the roof. Stopping on the steps he looked down to the next landing below him. Level 6. Wasn't the mission room on Level 3? Maybe it was Level 2? His breath was coming faster and a clammy sweat had broken out on his skin. 

"Tired," Iruka whispered, head down and eyes closed. "I'm just tired."

The hand gripping the banister abruptly flared in pain, ripping through his arm and up into his shoulder. His strained gasp echoed softly through the empty concrete stairwell and then everything was spinning. There was nothing but the feel of his body making hard contact with the stairs over and over as he tumbled. A sudden stillness told him when he had finally rolled to a stop on the landing. Panting for a few seconds, he attempted to sit up and to feel at the back of his head where it had cracked against the floor. No good. The world shifted again. A wave of sickness struck and he collapsed back hard onto his throbbing arm. He smothered his cry of agony into a harsh groan.

Great. Just great. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will himself into some form of calm. But the small sound of an anxious gasp caused his eyes to fly back open in alarm. 

A porcelain Cat mask was peering down at him. And if Iruka didn't know any better about the ANBU, he would say by its stance that it appeared... worried.

 

*****

 

Kakashi never arrived expecting a parade, but a hello from the dozing gate chunin would have been nice. 

Even just a wave. 

Apparently if you weren't bleeding out and carrying one or more of your severed limbs no one paid you much mind. He laughed a little. The image he'd conjured really wasn't supposed to be all that amusing but if he was anything, he was easy to amuse. And it really wasn't the gate chunin's fault to have such an impressive lack of enthusiasm. If he had that tedious job, he probably would have installed a hammock and a Do Not Disturb sign. Hm. That actually didn't sound quite that bad... 

" **Kakashi-sensei!!!** " someone was shouting. " **KAKA-SENSEIIIIIIIII!** " 

Not quite the welcome wagon he expected nor necessarily wanted, but Shinobi and beggars could never really be choosers. 

Behind Kakashi the gate chunin jerked awake with a sputtering sound, his posture assuming sudden alertness. They both watched Rock Lee galloping towards them like there was going to be a prize for his efforts. Not far behind there was Gai, standing in wait on top of a steaming yakisoba stand. Hands on his hips and owning a smile that exuded all the volumes of praise that Kakashi was certain he'd have the honor of hearing all the way to the Tower. Unsure if the young and extremely exuberant taijutsu artist barreling at him was going to slow down, Kakashi got ready to move out of the way or brace for impact. He had to do neither. 

"You look well, sensei!" Lee was bowing profusely. "You do not appear to have been mutilated nor maimed in any way!" 

Kakashi was just as pleased and surprised by that fact as well. 

"You know what they say," he patted the bowed head. "Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence."*

"S-Sensei?" 

He drew his attention wearily back up to the far distant Tower. If he lingered here for much longer there was no hope of avoiding Gai and the incredible scene that would undoubtedly unfold right in here the middle of the street. He chanced a glance back at the gate guard and saw his mouth hanging wide open. If it was because he recognized the Copy nin, or had just witnessed Lee, he could not be certain. Regardless, he would not subject the innocent chunin (who looked like he'd just fallen out of the Academy yesterday) to that sort of business. Kakashi wasn't a cruel man. Grinning to himself he used his waning chakra to make the rest of the journey and disappeared in a wisp of leaves. He'd find Gai later. 

Tears of untold and precious youth were better enjoyed over sake anyway. 

 

 

As he walked the halls he heard murmurs pointed cautiously in his direction. Accolades that shouldn't really have been uttered at all considering the shinobi making them should have had no idea what he had been up to. _the leaf will never fall, the will of fire, returned without a scratch_... and quite a few nods. It was easy to keep many things about the nature of an S-Rank secret but it was difficult in certain circles to keep the identity of any non-ANBU sent to complete it. Protocol and rules could only do so much at keeping nin from being nin. They liked a secret more than they liked a freshly whetted kunai.

"Sempai." An awed genin paused and gave a curt bow. 

He nodded vaguely in return and wondered what stories about his mission had been circulating while he’d been away.

Hopefully it was something good and not like that last fable that involved him getting involved with a Sand prostitute and a rash. But he didn't truly care what people made up to pass their time. He liked to bend a little protocol himself from time to time. He saw Asuma emerge from the mission office. Spotting Kakashi right away, the big man barked out a laugh and gave him a lopsided grin around his cigarette. 

"Glad you're back," Asuma gave him a hard punch to the shoulder as he passed by without stopping. "You're alive even." 

Kakashi kept his footing and dignity by not slamming into the opposite wall from the blow. "Seems to be the consensus." 

Entering the busy room, Kakashi experienced a pang of disappointment when he saw an unknown chunin sitting behind the dispatch desk where Iruka was supposed to be. Flipping his report scroll in the air in a blur of rotation he caught it and slammed it down in front of the startled nin. The chunin was young and his eyes were very wide. Thinking of the boy at the gate he briefly wondered if they were churning them out on the field a little earlier than usual these days. Speaking of children. 

"So," Kakashi asked causally as possible. "School back in session?"

"H-Huh?" 

"The Academy." 

It took a moment for it to register; the chunin's round eyes fixated on the masked face now several inches from his own. 

"O-Oh! No sempai! Another three weeks to go!" he was speaking much too fast. "They extended the winter break for repairs-" 

"I see," Kakashi straightened and considered the trembling nin for a moment. "Thank you for your hard work." 

"Uh, thank you for your hard work?" he answered uncertainly. "...too?" 

Iruka always said weird inspiring things like that to returning shinobi and offering the sentiment back to the other side of the table made Kakashi feel extremely philanthropic. Resisting the urge to give the paper pushing chunin a pat on the head as he had done Lee, he turned to make his leave. Repairs at the school. That made sense. The Academy always seemed to fall to the wayside in the budget when it came to restorations. That's where Iruka surely was then. Most likely shouting orders at poor unsuspecting civilian contractors. 

"Don't bother." 

Kakashi stopped to see Kotetsu leafing through papers and sticking them seemingly haphazardly in a long row of jumbled filing cabinets. 

"He's not at the Academy." 

Having not expressly said he was looking for anyone, he was slightly annoyed that he'd been called out on his admittedly poorly veiled inquiry. Poorly veiled and, at this point, wholly unnecessary but Kakashi liked to pretend he had some modicum of privacy. 

"So," he decided he was too tired to be irritated. "Where is he?" 

"Izumo brought him home." 

Kakashi took a second to wonder what that meant. 

"He fell down some stairs," Kotetsu was trying to slam an overstuffed metal drawer shut. "We've been telling him for days to take it easy." 

Fell down some stairs? If he had just been told Iruka suddenly didn't know how to read it would have made more sense. Stairs were not much of an obstacle for one that could manipulate chakra to walk on water. He was glad no one could see his mouth quirk into a smile.

"But you know him," With a grunt, Kotetsu used his shoulder to close the drawer the rest of the way. "He never listens." 

"No," Kakashi agreed as he continued to the door. "He doesn't does he." 

"Welcome home by the way!" he called out behind him. "Knew you'd make it back!"

Kakashi absently lifted a hand in response and left.

 

*****

 

 

Izumo wasn't there when Kakashi alighted on the icy roof next door. 

He was pleased that he could only sense one string of chakra, a steady flow of energy that he knew as well as the shape of its owner's eyes. He preferred his homecomings less crowded. It was practically a tradition if he actually stopped to think on it. Iruka wasn't a huge proponent of the practice because many of his returns were better suited for a medi-nin but everyone had their own priorities. After all, he had gone to the Tower first off like a good and dutiful operative should. With a report no less. Granted he just been there looking for Iruka but that was beside the point.

Kakashi involuntarily shivered as the wind picked up.

Winter sure had come early this year. 

Oddly enough, the curtains were drawn, something that rarely happened unless Kakashi had done it himself. Glancing down at his dirty uniform he wondered if it was worth cleaning up first. It was a possibility but he was already right here and Iruka's building had running water just like anywhere else.

His hand paused just as he was about to knock on the door. 

Kakashi experienced a brief burst of worry, wondering if maybe he should have brought something. What did one bring to someone who had just recently face planted down a staircase? Flowers? Candy? Skurikan? Perhaps a helmet. All of at least three which would likely earn him a punch to the face. The dilemma was solved when the door suddenly opened without him having to announce himself. Well at least taking a header down some steps hadn't hindered Iruka's ability to sense people lurking directly outside his apartment. 

"You're back." 

At first Iruka appeared apprehensive. He was quickly looking Kakashi up and down as per the drill whenever he came home from an assignment. There was the searching and finding no obvious signs of damage. No rips or tears. No gaping knife wounds or serrated flesh. Nothing but a filthy uniform. The warm and relieved smile that broke out across Iruka's face made him momentarily forget to even smile back. Kakashi took in the darkening bruise on the teacher's cheekbone and the flat bandage across his forehead which was missing the hitai-ate. The wind gusted, sending glittering flakes of frost up through the air and making Iruka draw back when it hissed through the doorway. 

"Get in." Iruka ordered. 

Kakashi paused inside to remove his boots and unzip his vest while Iruka leaned the door shut behind them. 

Iruka’s smile hadn't wavered. The sight of it directed at him made something in Kakashi's chest clench and for a full minute it was a little hard to think. There were very few people alive in the world that the Copy nin ever allowed to touch him without his express permission. However, he didn't so much as flinch when Iruka yanked his singlet up to his neck to make sure he was actually in one piece. He allowed the calloused hands to travel, feeling for the burning seep of fresh blood or the stiff fabric covering an older wound. He waited patiently for Iruka to be convinced that he was well and whole. Only then did Iruka push one hand up into the pale hair at the nape of his neck and pull the other around to the small of his back. Kakashi could easily say that he was unreasonably happy being crushed by him. Closing his eyes, he released a held breath and allowed his head to rest on Iruka's strong shoulder. He didn't dare think to tell him to stop even when it started to do more than just hurt his sore body. This kind of pain was welcome. The long sleepless days of the S-Rank faded, the wet sound of metal striking flesh receded, the smell of churned earth and sweat melted away to nothing but the past... 

"Your skin is cold." 

Kakashi nodded into Iruka's neck, momentarily lulled by the steady beat of his pulse. Iruka, if possible, tightened his hold even further. 

"I'll put some water on--" 

"Wait..." he wheezed. It was getting increasingly harder to draw in air. 

Iruka waited.

"B-Before you offer me tea...." Kakashi reluctantly pulled out of the suffocating squeeze to catch his breath. "....I have a few requests." 

"Requests." The smile faltered. "What kind of requests?"

"I need a shower. And your green yukata." 

"Why that one?" 

"Because I like it." 

"It's old." 

"It's soft." 

"Your standards have never been incredibly high."

"I'm not done," Kakashi said quietly. 

He lightly touched the violet bruise that traveled down Iruka's cheek. Iruka cringed slightly when the jounin's fingertips brushed against the swelling, brown eyes flickering down and away. Kakashi watched him carefully. 

"I want to know how The Great Iruka-Sensei of the Illustrious Konoha Academy managed to be defeated by a staircase." 

Iruka's smile shifted into annoyance.

"Laugh it up," he sighed. 

"Yes. Stairs. You fell," he cupped Iruka's chin so he would look at him and not the floor. "Your gang of mission colleagues sold you out." 

Iruka simply looked back at him but the smile he wore now could only be called wry. 

"They said," Kakashi lowered his voice conspiratorially. "...that you haven't taken any time off since your solo."

"I don't need it."

Kakashi blinked. Iruka's face was still set with a warm gaze and that smile but he thought he saw it waver for a moment, like a cloud passing over the sun. If he didn't know any better he would have guessed that the teacher looked, if only for a second, afraid. 

"I'll prep the bath," Iruka said abruptly as he summoned back the smile that had met Kakashi at the door. Twisting out of the hold on his chin, he headed towards the bathroom. "You could probably use a good soak." 

Kakashi watched him disappear around the corner and listened to the muted roar of the water being turned on. Dragging his singlet off over his head he bunched it his hands, the warm air on his exposed face feeling wrong and uncomfortable having had kept the mask up for so long. But everything here felt right and his weariness was finally rushing up to meet him. He moved slowly towards the steam wafting into the hallway, the scent of some herbal soap, and the sound of Iruka already in the water beckoning him. Working a sore shoulder he let out a long exhale in anticipation of hot water dulling his aches and clearing his foggy mind. Of Iruka's hair-- loose and damp on his shoulders--and the fact that he didn't have to think about much else. 

At least for tonight. 

 

*****

 

There were very few things that startled Kakashi. 

He wasn't sure which was worse. The fact that he had been so exhausted that he’d failed to notice Iruka had left the bed, or that he also hadn't noticed him leave the apartment. This was a new one for him. Either that or he was just another one on the long list of fools that underestimated most every chunin in existence. The clock read well past noon. Running late. Heading for home and in no great hurry, he listened to the gravelly snow crunch under his boots while he planned the team's afternoon training session in his head. He was distracted enough to almost get run into by someone rushing around the corner of his building. But not that distracted. He caught a now uncovered mug of ascending tea, two flying books, and a woman with his hand under her back.

"Careful now," he admonished. "It's icy."

"O-Oh, Hatake-sama! Good afternoon!" 

It was one of the other teachers from the Academy. He remembered her from various official functions over the years. Yet another chunin who had forgone the glorious glory of combat in favor of the forsaken trenches of academia. He watched her adjust her heavy hakama and very colorful scarf into proper place before handing her back her things. 

"Good afternoon," he said affably. "I hear the school is ...," he faltered, what _had_ he heard about the school besides it was a wreck? "... is well on its way to its former distinction." 

"I was just running an errand for Iruka-san. To his apartment," she said primly. "He warned me you might be there and not to be alarmed or afraid." 

Eyebrow raised, Kakashi wasn't sure how to take that so he didn't. "Errand?" 

"Yes, Iruka-san seems to have left all his grading materials and texts at home. I am to retrieve them," she explained. "He does not like to leave the construction teams unsupervised you see." 

Texts and all his materials? That was quite a bit of an oversight when you worked at a school. Even if it was on hiatus. 

"I see well, uh, mind the wards sensei." 

"Thank you, I certainly will Hatake-sama." 

As she hurried away he made a confused face beneath his mask. Iruka had forgotten all that? Iruka did not forget much. With the exception of perhaps his very own birthday. Maybe it was all a matter of fatigue. It would be a cold day in Wind Country when he would admit that even he'd fallen out of a tree once or twice when he had pushed himself too far too fast for too long. His thoughts flashed to that look he had seen on Iruka's face when he had asked what had happened with the stairs. Kakashi had studied the faces of others long enough to know that kind of apprehension when he saw it. But this sort of trivial thing happened. No shinobi wanted to show weakness. Every one of them ended up taking some show of wounded pride sooner or later. 

The tiny apartment was just as he’d left it. 

More akin to a closet that dreamed one day it might become a room. A rolled up musty futon in the corner, no food whatsoever, and completely dark. Home sweet home. He liked Iruka's place a lot more. There you could find actual furniture and pictures on the walls. All this place was good for was to shut off in until he was needed again.

He considered opening the dusty blinds to let some of the gray light in but decided against it. 

Team 7 had been under Gai's supervision while he’d been away and he knew they'd have a lot to complain (or cheer) about. He was practically looking forward to it. Iruka would probably like to hear how Naruto and the others were progressing. And perhaps hearing about his adopted jinchuuriki would take the teacher's mind off whatever that had left him so scattered. The kid tended to do wonders for putting matters into perspective. Checking the clock once more he saw he was little over a half an hour late. That gave him time enough to have a decent breakfast and a stop by the memorial stone. 

Back to the grind. 

 

*****

 

 

Iruka was prepared for the jokes. 

His colleagues in the mission room rarely let him down. It didn't help that he arrived in the afternoon so they had had all morning to prepare. Have a nice trip? Did you enjoy the fall? That kind of thing. It eased off after an hour or so but mostly in part because no one could think up any more one-liners on how hilarious it was to hurtle down a flight of concrete. Also, Iruka's refusal to fuel them further with any come-backs accompanied by his complete lack of reaction made it distinctly less fun for the other parties involved. And as witty as the repartee was, Iruka was relieved when a wave of rambunctious genin teams seemed to all arrive at once leaving no one time to give it any more serious thought. Almost, anyway.

"Don't worry, Iruka," Genma always had to have the last word. "I put in a request to Tsunade for an elevator." 

Giving a small ungrateful smile in return, he used his crossed arms to conceal his thumb pushing over and over into the crook of his arm. The pain. It felt even worse today. He jammed it harder just to feel the sting of the slice on his skin turn into a sudden burn. The room grayed for a second before it came back into sharp focus. 

"Confirmed!" the small girl opposite him announced. "Mission complete!" 

Trying hard to pay attention, Iruka found himself smiling automatically at the genin who proudly held up her papers, sealed, and signed by the owner of an escaped exotic bird. She explained loftily that she and her team mates had climbed the cliff of the First Hokage and had faced certain death. 

"Ah, very good work," he said as he stamped her report. "Your sensei must be very proud."

She was saying something in response but his mind was far elsewhere. Far from the Leaf. The image of the shrine hidden up in the snowy mountains coming unbidden to his mind. He could see the stone walls glittering in sheer ice. The clear blue sky sharp and stark as the air. It was strange to feel a tug at the memory of it, as if he would really want to dwell on shivering in the meager candle light, stiff hands aching as he worked on the frost covered inscriptions in his scrolls. He could smell the oily thick smoke from the sputtering camp fires he had made to stay the chill. The wood he'd found was all around the outside of the ruins, brought long ago from the valley far below and left protruding from the frozen drifts like broken bones. The black kindling never properly took to flame, barely warming the snow for water to drink-

"NEXT." 

Iruka jumped at the near shout.

"COME ON." Izumo was doing crowd control at the doors so not all teams herded in at once. "KEEP IT MOVING."

The new group of genin to arrive at his station didn't even acknowledge him. They were all deep in an argument about which of them would be the one to explain to Iruka-sensei that they should get partial credit. Because apparently although they had successfully located the missing cat it just so happened, by no fault of their own, that the cat was dead. But they had found it and that counted didn't it? He barely heard them. Iruka kept rubbing at the burn on the inside of his arm. He was so tired.

"SO whadda ya say, sensei?"

Startled from his wandering thoughts, Iruka brought his attention back to the three eager but anxious genin at his desk.

"Does it count, sensei? Or what?"

"Does what count?" He had a feeling they had been saying something to him beforehand. The expectant looks on their faces made his stomach churn. "Uh... well..." 

"Dead cat." Genma offered. 

Oh. Yes. As soon as the jounin said it Iruka recalled it right away. The cut on his arm throbbed viciously under his hand. 

"Irukaaaaaa," Kotetsu griped from two desks down, tipped so far back in chair he was liable to fall over. "Any day now on those D-Rank assignments? These guys are chomping at the bit over here." 

Searching his desk he spotted the bundle of a dozen D-Rank missions half hidden under a fall of papers. "I have them," he heard himself say. Standing stiffly he carried them over to Kotetsu with a small murmur of apology. 

"Get ready for this ladies," Kotetsu whistled as he unrolled the first one. "Park bathrooms and trash detail!"

The all-girl genin team waiting before him protested in high pitched unison. 

Iruka practically fell back down onto his seat and found the three impatient genin still standing in front of him. They seemed to be waiting for something. 

"COME ON! DO we get the credit or what?!" 

Iruka honestly had no idea what they were talking about. 

There was a hand on his shoulder. 

"Why don't you head on home," Genma said. "These guys got this."

For once Iruka was inclined to agree that leaving in the middle of a work day seemed like a very good idea. His arm ached and his head was starting to compete. Feeling slightly dizzy, he took the stairs carefully with a sliver of paranoia that made him growl in aggravation. If he took another fall he would _really_ never hear the end of it. When he finally stepped outside the brisk air felt good on his face for a change. When he got home he'd lay down and get the rest everyone kept going on and on about. He would not look over one single Academy lesson plan or even clean one single mug left in the sink. Steeling his resolve he took a deep breath and headed... he paused uncertainly.

Iruka blinked, eyes watering from the wind. Looking both ways down the busy street he read the oddly unfamiliar street signs that he saw every day. He stepped backwards with sinking dread and heard himself let out a small sound of distress.

Home.

He was going home.

The thing was that Iruka wasn't quite sure which way home was.


	2. The Reliquary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be longer than I thought.

 

 

Kakashi had made it through another day and hadn't lost one single eye.

He wasn't exactly sure when the bar had dropped quite that close to the ground as to consider that feat a success, however, genin class had their own occupational hazards. Kakashi shifted in his crouch. He'd been lingering on a rooftop in sight of the Tower for longer than usual. Mostly to watch the sun set. As dismal as the wash of yellow was through the patchy clouds it was, for the first time in weeks, visible. 

His thoughts wandered to the training session that had lasted into the late afternoon. Not only hadn't he lost any body parts, but his team had almost made it through the entire lesson without seriously injuring one another on purpose. Almost. He'd leave Sasuke's newest black and blues out of his report this time. Just to assure the bosses that he wasn't leading a band of irredeemable idiots. Though to be fair, Sasuke did have it coming after he'd very subtly tripped Naruto off a substantial cliff.

The other reason he was perched on the roof was an old habit of watching for the evening allotment of messenger birds coming in and out from the spiral of the aviary. It was always easy to tell when the winged carriers arrived or departed off schedule--even easier to discern any which carried extraordinary remittance.

A tremor of cold shook through his muscles as the warmthless sun finally dipped behind the cliffs and the gray light deepened to slate.

Not that he did much with information about bird schedules but store it for his Just in Case files. What could he say? He'd been raised to know more and always be well ahead of those around him. What he couldn't piece together on his own, his network amongst the ranks filled in. He watched a few chunin leave the Tower talking idly about whatever happened during their late running shifts. Everyone on the regular day rotation would have gone home hours ago.

Kakashi was hungry and not all that tired. And that only meant one thing.

 

 

It was strange to see Iruka's apartment dark at this time of evening. 

It was much too early for him to have gone to bed. Not that Kakashi knew exactly what Iruka did and when but the teacher was, much to Kakashi's inner ANBU dismay, completely and utterly predictable. He had been meaning to have a small talk about that with him eventually. Truth be told, Kakashi had kept putting it off. He was fairly certain the chunin would not take it well if he suspected he was being spoken to like a subordinate.

Which technically Iruka was.

A glance through the windows revealed what he already knew.

There wasn't even the familiar cast off satchel Iruka always dropped by the entry way. He checked all the other windows. All, of course, were uncovered. Kakashi grit his teeth. Another thing he'd have to include in the eventual tutorial of How Not to Die. Wards were certainly practical in their line of work, but privacy had helped many of their kind live longer.

These wards were flimsy, anyhow, and of little use. Not against someone like him anyway. Or someone like him who happened to be very determined. He slipped in and let the drapes blow around him as his gaze swept the room.

"Anyone home?" he said, knowing there'd be no answer but it felt polite. "Just... stopping by."

Half hoping to find the discarded leather bag filled with academia thrown further in out of sight by the front door, he peered in but there was nothing. No dampness on the mat to indicate Iruka had stepped in and out again. Dinner with his mission office friends? A visit with his student's parents? Maybe back at the Academy determinedly sawing lumber to rebuild the school all by himself? Kakashi suddenly felt ridiculous looking around in the empty darkness. 

He thumbed through a book left open next to a half empty mug of morning tea on the kitchen table.

Iruka wasn't here and may not be for quite a while. He had spent the previous night wholly uninvited, with Iruka burned out as he was, and Kakashi hadn't been much help in making sure he’d gotten any decent sleep. 

The clone ruse was just a habit. He had wanted to be there himself but the Hokage and the elders had mired him in a clan meeting all damn day. It was completely understandable why Iruka might not be in a great big rush to get home. Kakashi always provided him plenty of reasons. 

Time to go.

Closing the window behind him, he reset the wards. Feeling inexplicably heavy he took back to the streets and decided to pick up a conbiniben from the small shop at the corner of his own far off block. Team 7 would be waiting at dawn for their D-Rank. Nothing sounded better at the moment than some draining and mindless task. 

If he was going to bother to eat tonight, he might as well get some sleep while he was at it.

 

 

*****

 

Iruka wasn’t exactly sure when his eyes started to play tricks on him.

One moment, he’d recognize a red painted street sign only to blink and find he’d been staring at the purple hat of a passing woman. He knew it had been hours since he'd left the Tower but he wasn't certain of how many.

Sounds were becoming strange, pitched at a register he wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear. Extra noises flitted in and out of his consciousness, making him turn suddenly, eyes searching frantically for the source.

It was all so distracting that he had to stare hard at the paper in his hands.

He was concentrating so hard on the folded paper that he barely noticed the people walking to and fro on the footpath. It was a very basic and mostly unmarked map of Konoha. Something made for very young children with exaggerated pictures for only the most important landmarks. Not very useful but it was all he could find in his bag besides text books and half filled out mission rank forms.

"Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka flinched at the sound of his name. Dropping the map to his side, he clutched both hands on the bottom edge of the bench he'd been sitting long before the sun had gone down. If he gripped hard enough no one would see how much he was shaking. 

"It is you! How nice to see you!"

The woman was backlit by a street lamp leaving her in shadow but he knew her voice. It was the mother of one of his students. Gripping the bench tighter he tried to smile in greeting. There were twinkling lights adorning the trees that lined the street, banners, and sparkling ornaments. Blue paper lanterns swung in the chill breeze almost in time to holiday music being played somewhere nearby.

"Come to see the festival decorations? So many people have been coming to see our part of town! We always do the best. Finest in the village!" 

_'Keep talking. Please! What part of town? Keep talking until I know where I am.'_

He couldn't ask her. No one who lived their entire lives in the Leaf asked for directions. If he did that it would rouse some concern or suspicion and then the military police would show up. Even worse maybe even the ANBU considering his links to the Tower. Realizing he was clenching his jaw, he tried to breathe slowly.

"I bet you're really here just to get a look at the theatre," her voice dropped in confidentiality. "I just know it. I cannot believe it will finally be reopened just in time for the festivities!"

Iruka felt himself nodding. Reopened theatre? There was an old movie theatre on the far east side. He knew that. It used to be nothing more than a makeshift stage built decades ago. It was deemed historical and the budget committee passed over the Academy to fix it up--

"But there aren't any out just yet. You'll have to wait until the festival starts!"

Iruka realized he'd been looking at her but hadn't been listening. 

"I-I'm sorry, what's not out?"

"Movies silly!"

Right. Movie theatres showed movies. He hadn't been to one in so long he forgot that some people looked forward to them. The face of the woman standing over him was still in hidden with the street light glowing behind her. But he began to be distracted by something else. Even though he hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings before her arrival, he was still surprised he hadn't noticed it earlier. Beyond her shoulder across the street and too far away to be caught in cast shadow there appeared the shape of a man. The silhouette stood out even more because of its unmoving position among the flow of the shifting crowd. Iruka squinted trying to get a better look. The figure was pitch black compared to the people walking past. It was too tall and too thin. For a moment his vision flashed with the shrine. The weak flicker of a camp fire. The foul smelling smoke.

"Have a nice night, Iruka-sensei!," the woman seemed to be leaving. "I'll be sure to tell Minako that I saw you!"

Minako. That was the name of his student. Before he could mumble his response she was walking away and his gaze returned to the still figure across the street. 

"Don't stay out too long," the woman called back over her shoulder. "Or you'll catch your death of cold!"

Not trusting his voice, Iruka let one of his hands unfasten from the bench so he could wave at her in acknowledgement. As soon as she was out of sight he returned his gaze to the strange figure still standing right where he'd first saw it. He wasn't sure how long he been watching but the store front lights gradually began to blink off one by one and the thinning crowds dwindled to nothing. It was so cold. Iruka got stiffly to his feet, wincing at the sharp cramps in his back and legs. How long had he been sitting there? Eyes locked on the still form across the street, he walked unsteadily as it urged him forward. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he should run. Stay away from it. But fear felt hidden and far away. 

As he drew closer he saw it was no play of shadow. It was nothing. A featureless outline.

_Come._

A voice reached him very much like its shape, flat and toneless. It lulled Iruka to speak, his tongue thick in his mouth.

"Who...Who are you?"

_Come back. Back to your home. Warm there._

"What are you talking about?" he breathed the words, transfixed by its slow shifting whirl.

_You are the reliquary. You must endure._

Iruka stumbled backwards as it gently drifted closer.

_Marked._

The wound on his arm flared.

Iruka shuddered at the strange smooth slide of black slither into his hand, entwining through his numb fingers. It seemed suddenly taller than it had before as it flowed backwards, not seeming to have a front or back to its form. Iruka staggered forward with the painful pull, feeling like a child being led by its parent.

"S-Stop." Iruka stammered. "Let go of me...let go..."

_The reliquary must endure._

Iruka watched in detached horror as the swath of pitch stretched and expanded, swallowing his hand and running up his arm. The wound on the inside of his elbow pulsed red hot as it oozed past and up his shoulder. Iruka dropped his weight hoping to break free but the being lashed onto him just bent and shifted to every move he made like viscous water. Then it reached his face.

The scent of the thing stuck him like a blow and Iruka's mind reeled. All he could see was a small flickering campfire. One of the countless he had made in the shrine in an effort to drive off the cold. Oily smoke, thick and pungent. 

When Iruka could open his eyes again he was staring at a door.

His front door.

He was home.

 

*****

 

The very first winter festival had started and another D-Rank was halfway finished. Three days since Kakashi last saw the village and he was feeling optimistic. He appreciated the time spent in the great outdoors with nothing but a shovel and a never ending litany that repeated like a song in his head.

"Come on," he cheerily encouraged his lagging genin. "Almost home."

Granted the litany was a meditation Kakashi had been taught to withstand relentless and brutal torture. But despite that he firmly believed the premise applied to most anything that required a mind to fall in synch when confronted with the unbearable.

Kakashi felt great. Fantastic even.

He was covered in filth and not in good way. This was nothing like dirt and grime from days of stealth and espionage in a foreign savage clime. There had been no calculated battles or blood dripping from the leaves of the trees. None of that admirable and honorable business this time around. Kakashi and his much less elated genin were splattered in enough horse manure that he was fairly certain that with some effort they could build another good sized horse. 

"The gate is just up ahead," he pointed out in case his team hadn't noticed. "Not long now."

Having spent the entire past several days mucking stables of a dozen surrounding farms it would be a sign of a job poorly done if they were not in their current unspeakable state. He had kept telling them that they should be thankful it wasn't summer, but by the wretched looks on their accusing frozen faces he saw that winter probably wasn't that great either.

Kakashi breathed in a lungful of air. He hadn't felt this invigorated in a long time.

One of the squad had stopped behind him to retch in the bushes. Again. Stopping at that dango stand might have been very a bad choice on a team leader's part but he hadn't suggested they stuff it all down like it was the cure for onbaa pox.

"K-Kaka-sensei...," Sakura croaked from the shrubs. "We really have to do this again tomorrow?"

"We sure do," Kakashi answered brightly. "Four more days to go!"

He didn't have the heart to tell them he had picked this week long assignment on purpose. Tedious chores always cleared the mind. At least he made sure they'd have at least one night to live it up at some new festival the Hokage invented so the populace wouldn't go completely insane over the course of the coming months. Pausing to wait for his bedraggled team to collect themselves he felt a brush of sympathy. They really did look horrible. 

"Ok guys," he announced. "Why don't we all get some--"

"Wow! Ramen!" Naruto piped up. "That sounds great!"

Kakashi had been about to say 'rest' but he supposed his genin could use some real food. 

"Uh, no thanks," Sakura moaned. "I'm going home."

"Me too," Sasuke was already walking away.

Kakashi watched them both leave before wearily turning his attention at the last to remain.

"I guess it's just you and me Kaka-sensei!" 

"Right."

Kakashi would be doing some wash up before any eating would be taking place. Now that his buzz was dying down he found that he wasn't exactly enjoying how he smelled. He'd hit the shower and get on something with less of a barn yard hue. After he was suitable to exist somewhat normally in public he'd eat some noodles and listen to Naruto complain about that goat that kept biting him in bad places. 

"Ichiraku's in 30 minutes!" Naruto ordered as he dashed off in the direction of his place.

Glad that Naruto was thinking of cleanliness for a change, he himself managed to shower, dress, and arrive at the ramen stand late enough that he expected a fuming genin waiting to drag him inside. Oddly enough, Naruto wasn't there yet. Taking a seat at the counter he spoke to Teuchi about the upcoming gala and remarked politely on the holiday garlands that were draped all over the small restaurant. Garish but unarguably festive.

"Sorry I'm late."

Kakashi watched a freshly scrubbed Naruto hop up on a stool with much less enthusiasm than normal. He tilted his head in a frown when Naruto also preceded to order his food without the usual boisterous gusto. And then, instead of chatting incessantly with Teuchi he just hunkered down into his crossed arms.

"Something..." Kakashi hazarded a guess. "...bothering you?"

"Nah," Naruto shrugged. "Yeah. I dunno."

Kakashi waited.

"Ya see, I really wanted to see Iruka-sensei and I figured since you were payin that-"

"I didn't say-"

"- that he should come eat with us. So I went to the Tower and they said he's been home sick for three days."

"He's not sick," Kakashi felt the need to amend. "He just had a very difficult mission."

"Yeah, I know. But I went over to his apartment to see if he was up for just some ramen. That's all."

Obviously seeing no Iruka, Kakashi realized what had happened. "Iruka-sensei needs rest right now," he assured. "He'll back up and around before you know it."

"I KNOW, but, but he was home."

"Where else would he be?"

"I mean he was home and he didn't answer the door. I could TELL he was in there, I could feel it. Why wouldn't he want to talk to me?" Naruto looked even more miserable. "He coulda at least told me to go away."

Kakashi blinked down at the steaming bowl being set down in front of him.

"You are _sure_ he was home?"

"Yes!" Naruto cracked his chopsticks apart harder than necessary. "I could _tell_. Just like I can ... _tell_ yer sitting right next to me."

Suddenly not feeling very hungry, Kakashi made a show of moving his noodles around while Naruto ate. The kid perked up a bit with some food in him, Naruto's shifting moods never leaving him anywhere for too long. Kakashi half listened to the one sided conversation about some new jutsu involving livestock excrement.

It was one thing to dismiss the world. Quite another for a man like Iruka to ignore Naruto. Ever since he'd returned from that mission he had been acting strangely. It was easy to cast it off to a number of elements but Kakashi had a growing sick feeling that he had missed something. Something vital.

After the kid thanked him and yawned his way out to the street, Kakashi paid the bill and had his own bowl wrapped up for take away. Iruka could probably use something other than what he usually kept in his cabinets most of the time. He would stop by. Nothing obtrusive. Bring him some ramen and if he were lucky get at least one of those smiles in return. However, before any potential smiles and eating were to occur there was something else he had to do first. 

All it took was one small detour to the hospital.

 

*****

 

The tired man regarded him with apprehension.

"You want what now?"

Kakashi checked himself from idly toying with the medical supplies on the man’s exam table by putting his hands in his pockets. He knew cracking this guy would take some well honed tenacity. "I’d like to review a file."

“Denied.” The man said gruffly, shuffling reports on his desk dismissively.

Kakashi took that as cue to continue. "Just one--from a recent deploy. The mission is no longer active so the medical reviews should all be in."

The medi nin studied him closely. "And why would I-"

"I have clearance?" Kakashi tried.

"You know, Kakashi-san," the older nin crossed his arms with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "Even you don't get access to anything and everything just by showing up and asking."

"True," Kakashi conceded. "Then you should be glad I bothered."

"What are you implying?"

"I could go straight to Hokage and put in a request," Kakashi tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Or I could just find a very broken window later tonight. You see, all of that takes so much effort and time. It would be soooooooooo much easier if-"

"Fine!" he grumbled with a pound of a fist. "But if you are after something code restricted there's not much even I can do about it."

"Relax," the jounin smiled. "I'm not interested in any of the black ops."

Looking somewhat relieved, the doctor sagged in defeat. "Names and Team designation?"

"No designation and just one name."

"Wait, wait, if this is an S-rank then you of all people know those reviews go straight to the Tower."

"Iruka Umino."

There was a moment as the name slowly registered and the medi nin's disparaging look turned to utter bafflement. "The teacher from the Academy?" 

Kakashi nodded patiently.

"Are you sure?"

Kakashi wondered as he stared into the man’s open mouth if this person actually believed another someone named Iruka Umino might exist in Konoha.

"THAT is really the file you are after?" the doctor's perplexed face was bordering on distress. "But why?"

This exchange was beginning to get a tad tiresome.

Kakashi shrugged. "May I see it please?"

Rolling his chair back, the doctor reluctantly pulled open a deep drawer at the bottom of his desk. "I actually happen to have it right here," he noticed the jounin's questioning look. "He's been back a few times for treatment so his mission file stayed open."

"Treatment?" Taking the proffered folder, he frowned at that bit of news. "For what?" 

"This really is a terrible breach of confidentially--."

Kakashi gave him a skeptical look over the folder containing Iruka's medical records as of that month. Not to mention it had been seen by every nin and ninkin in the Tower that had anything to with the mission debriefing. 

"I think we've already burned that bridge don't you think?" He flipped it open and saw the very first page had a photo of Iruka clipped to its corner. "So. What is he being treated for?"

The medi nin let out a deep breath. "Abrasions that weren't healing well. Some pattern bruising that were still giving him discomfort. By the way, we were all quite amazed that he managed not to lose any outer extremities due to the weather conditions-"

"And?"

"All and all," the man tossed up his hands. "There was nothing but the typical injuries we see from extended field work in that sort of harsh environment."

Kakashi's shoulders hitched in a small laugh as he flipped through the pages. Naruto's _apartment_ was a harsh environment. He knew exactly where they had sent Iruka and that environment was a bit more than what the mere word implied. 

All those weeks ago shortly after Iruka's departure, Kakashi had read from an innocently borrowed mission plan that detailed the chunin's assignment and its geographical location. He reflected once again how it was odd to have to go through some trouble just to find out about a C-Rank. However, there was some unknown seal involved and some of the elders got touchy about access to that sort of intel. Kakashi had dismissed the secrecy at the time but now it made him edgy.

The doctor was still talking.

"....Some moderate malnutrition. Loss in muscle mass. Basic fatigue. Mental and physical. Dehydration of course..." 

Kakashi listened to him run down the details of a body's deterioration like a grocery list as he studied Iruka's picture. 

"There were some burns he had treated himself," the man went on. "But we had to go over those again. There was repeated scoring in the same areas and it seems he didn't have an adequate supply of medical gear."

"The Tower... misjudged... how long he might have had to be out there."

"I'm not told much," the doctor muttered a little bitterly. "They just tell us enough to know how to treat the ones that make it back."

Pulling the photograph in the file free, Kakashi looked at it closer. It was dated the day the chunin had arrived back. Iruka looked strange when he wasn't happy, angry, or just about on the verge of becoming either. He looked blank. In fact, the photo reminded him of just how much weight Iruka had lost. Of course, he had noticed it himself when the body he knew didn't feel the same, but that degree of emaciation happened when you spent a month on nothing but food pills. 

"Burns?" Kakashi caught up with what the doctor had said. "Oh, on his hands. They're fine now."

The doctor's brows furrowed, obviously wondering why the infamous Kakashi of the Sharingan would know the current state of some chunin's hands.

"He was doing seal work," he didn't feel like explaining much more than that. "And the abrasions?"

"Uh, yes, moderate to minor on his arms and legs."

Kakashi had seen all of those too and he knew none of it was very serious. There had to something else here. Something to explain why Iruka would lock himself away and not even speak to a boy he considered his only family. There had to be an answer for that and all the other recent behavior since the shrine mission. Kakashi hadn't been adding it up then, but he sure was now. The nervousness. Being absent minded. Falling down the damn stairs. Flipping through the pages again all he could see was what the doctor had already mentioned but just recorded in greater detail and medical jargon. It just didn't make any sense. 

"So what exactly was he still coming back here for?" 

The medi nin faltered under Kakashi's sudden renewed and harder focus. "Some of the injuries weren't healing as quickly as hoped. There was one in particular on his right arm that was giving him a lot of trouble. It's right there in the chart."

Kakashi snapped the folder shut and sent it in a flat spin through the air to land neatly on the desk.

"If I may ask, why are you so interested in this chunin?" the medi nin ventured. "Is he one of your operatives, or ... or something like that?"

Kakashi made for the open window instead exiting via the door. "Something like that."

It was time to see Iruka. 

He had some questions about a seal.


	3. The Shadow

Seated outside on the edge of his window, Iruka released the sparrow and let it dart away, frantic wings tilting with the gusts of snow.

Averting his gaze from its flight, Iruka watched his breath cloud the chill air as he coughed harshly into a fist.

This had been the third day he was yet again unable to appear at the mission desk as scheduled. He had never possessed the reserves of chakra needed to have his own summons but at least he had use of the many messengers that served the Hokage. It was a good thing for his sake because the birds had become his only way to relay news to the Tower due to his current circumstances.

The shadow ordered him to send a bird every day. It would be no good if a fellow nin started wondering where he was and came looking for him. The thing residing in his apartment wanted him solitary and it had made clear early on that it would extremely uncompromising if Iruka attempted to change that.

The shadow.

He'd named his tormenter for lack of a better term.

Iruka let his body sag against the window pane, ignoring the biting cold for as long as he thought possible. 

"Are you happy now?" He asked it bitterly. It felt good to be petulant.

But unfortunately, his remark revealed the shadow was not happy at all.

Slumping down with a gasp from the sill, he immediately had to reach for the wall. A painful clench behind his ribs made him sink slowly to his knees. He worked a fist into the center of his aching chest and felt the squeeze around his lungs, the pain locking his breath in his sore throat. The squeeze turned into a grip.

" _ah!... I did what you wanted..._ "

The air around him rippled in displeasure and it stuck harder. Iruka's hand flew out to brace himself against the floor as a fit of savage coughing wracked through his body until he collapsed. Even the simple act of moving brought pain. He knew the sickness waxed and waned at the whim of the thing keeping him imprisoned so he didn't usually go out of his way to provoke it. He just couldn't help it this time he supposed.

"E-Enough," he muttered to the pitch black thing that lurked in every corner. "... I sent the messenger. I did what you told me to do so... leave me the hell alone..." 

With bleary vision, he rolled over and focused on the chair by the kitchen table. He wanted to be there. Tea was there. He felt so empty. He managed to get to his feet. 

Empty and afraid. 

All the past moments of wrong floors and forgotten names seemed paltry considering his chaos now. As of three days ago Iruka had lost an entire evening wandering the streets of Konoha. He recalled nothing else about that event besides finding himself back home. And ever since that night, everything had horribly changed. At first he thought maybe it was his exhaustion and high temperature making him see things. The sorts of things that flitted and flickered just outside his fevered vision. 

However that theory went right out the window when he'd actually seen something he couldn't explain away. Iruka had seen a shadow move. It hadn't been some Nara Yin Release either. It had slid all by itself right off the wall and onto the floor before joining with his own. 

And then it started making words. 

It had covered him to meld with the mark on his arm that somehow linked them. It all made perfect sense now that he'd had all these vacant hours to piece all of the events together. That damned seal had been guarding something after all. 

And Iruka had unknowingly set it free.

Scratching at in the inside of his burning arm he let out another rasping cough and shuddered at the soreness that resonated up and down his body. As poorly as he was, he forced himself to take another icy shower to get the oily smoky smell of the creature off of his skin. The rusting water heater was off again. Iruka regretted it now. His core couldn't seem to rise above the frigid air that hung around him. 

A quick check of the braziers revealed his charcoal was down and would need to be restocked. Had he used it all up that quickly? No warmth flowed through the vents of the iron grates in the flooring. Wonderful. Looked like he’d be toughing out the elements from indoors. At least the stove still worked last time he’d checked. 

That may have been yesterday. He wasn't sure. 

He blinked when he realized time had passed and he was now seated at his kitchen table well past sunset. There was a cup of untouched tea in the loose grip of his hands. Even knowing he had been trapped there for only three days it had felt much longer than that. Like the stories he heard of the more insidious time distortion genjutsu that made minutes into hours, hours became days, and days drifting into an eternity.

Iruka wondered if this was what it felt like to slowly lose your mind. 

The presence was making itself manifest stronger and stronger as time crept lethargically by. Its voice echoed in his head, sometimes tinny and deafening and other times humming and distant. He distantly knew he should be experiencing more worry than he was. He did sometimes. But as soon as he felt the sensation begin to build, the voice would rush in, black pitch would fill his head and it would all be swept away until there was nothing left. 

Even still, Iruka had tried to get away more than once.

He'd even made it half way out of the front door. But each time he came close to freedom, the voice would always return to subdue him. When that didn't work, the black form would coalesce into something more solid to send him crashing against the floor and keep him in agony until he complied. Iruka wasn't even sure if distance even really mattered. The thing had played with his memory for quite a while without requiring him as a roommate.

The thing was always there to draw him back in one way or another. 

When he couldn't see it he could feel it hovering nearby. Its weighty presence lay coiling and uncoiling as if waiting for something inside him to give. After that first day, he found it was the only thing he could feel at all. The world of whispered chakra traces had disappeared, leaving him in another form of darkness all together. 

He sat at his kitchen table with the mug of stale tea in his hands and stared at the opposite wall. It must have been midweek because he'd heard the laughter of the young man that made deliveries to his elderly neighbor. There had been no glimmer or even hint of the courier's presence or anyone else's for that matter. Just laughter.

The grip on the mug tightened. Sensing nothing was akin to having gone blind. 

A sharp rap from somewhere behind startled him. What now? The shadow had a new game? 

He stood from his chair, gripping its back to stay upright. 

"Your bathroom window was open," a real human voice said. 

Iruka could not hide his helpless surprise. 

Kakashi was inexplicably standing in his hallway. 

"Hello," the jounin gave a small wave. "I brought you something." 

Iruka stared dully at the Ichiraku bag Kakashi had proffered in two hands. 

"It might be a bit cold," the jounin apologized, but then glanced around the apartment. "But not quite as cold as it is in here." He added with a cheerful shiver. 

"How... How did you get in here?" His voice was rough and unused. 

"Window," Kakashi gestured over his shoulder with his chin. "Bathroom."

That wasn't exactly what Iruka meant but he was so happy to see him he couldn't make his fogged mind form any coherent words. Iruka swallowed back a burning in his eyes as he experienced an unexpected wave of sadness. It seemed a very long time since he'd last seen Kakashi. He didn't want to think about how the hours seemed slowed within these walls and that maybe more time had passed for him than he'd cared to know.

"You should really upgrade your wards, sensei." 

Iruka breathlessly smiled.

"Yes, I should."

There was a sharp twist in his belly when it finally dawned on him that the bag Kakashi was holding might contain food. He'd been living on tea. Even if he could remember which street or which direction the nearest shop was he'd have been punished for trying anyway. Kakashi must have seen the pathetic hopeful look on his face even though the room was barely lit. 

Iruka wanted to move towards him but the shadow fluttered menacingly between them in warning. He waited fiercely for some sort of reaction from Kakashi at its appearance. The thing bloomed grotesquely across the ceiling to drip down the opposite wall and Kakashi did not so much as glance in its direction. Iruka forlornly realized that the jounin not only hadn't seen it, but was completely unaware of even a flicker of its presence.

The thing's satisfaction at his suffocating disappointment struck him worse than any fist could.

Kakashi was, however, very intent on looking at him. 

He really didn't want to think too much about his own appearance. Weak. Mad. Haunted? Iruka wanted to laugh but managed not to. The voice was telling him to make Kakashi go away. It said Kakashi was there just to use him in some way. He was there to hurt him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed himself back to focus. Kakashi was not a threat. He had maybe even brought him food. Iruka began to tremble with the simmering rise of his muzzled anger. The jounin belonged here unlike some things. Unlike that thing that watched him every waking moment ready to inflict pain and some new humiliation. The thing that was always groping through his head like a damn-- 

His thoughts abruptly ceased. 

The far off drone of the shadow's voice wrenched his rage away, smothering his desperate need to tell Kakashi everything. To please help him. To put an end to this. The thing pulled his struggling determination straight back into a wash of blank submission as gray as the winter sky. 

"Sit," the jounin set the ramen bag down on the table. "I'll warm this up. Take a look at the furnace." Kakashi motioned to the stone cold grates on the floor.

Iruka’s sluggish brain kicked into gear at the words. Furnace. Heat. Yes. He had been meaning to turn it on. Yesterday maybe. 

Kakashi was still studying him. His pale cheeks against the mask still slightly flushed from the wind. He made no move. 

"Naruto was a little worried." 

Something deep down made Iruka flinch at the words. 

"He stopped by today to see you and--" 

"Oh," Iruka vaguely knew something about that. The shadow had told him to stay where he was. When he tried to go to the door anyway it had wrapped around his body until he couldn't breathe. "I ... I must have been sleeping." 

"Hm." 

Pushing trembling hands down over his crumpled yukata, he dragged a hand through unkempt hair and went to sit as he'd been told. Or at least he tried. As soon as he made to return to the kitchen chair he felt his knees go slack and knew violent impact with the table would follow. 

But he never made it to the floor. 

Halfway to the ground, Iruka and the crouched man behind him breathed in and out. 

"S'ok," Iruka attempted when he got his words back, patting the arm that had caught him under the waist. "...Been happening... a lot..." 

"Iruka..." the jounin sounded different. The muscles in the arms now enclosed around his waist tightened, shaking him firmly. "Hey, take it easy--" 

He realized he had been feebly trying to push away the man trying to keep him up. "You," he felt a warm rush of hope, blinking upwards uncertainly. "When did you... When did you get here?" 

Iruka searched the man’s—Kakashi’s—face for some sign of explanation. The eye not covered by the hitai-ate was wide, concerned. 

Shifting his grip without giving sway, Kakashi muttered an apology. “Forgive me for this.” One hand flicked up his headband. 

The scarlet eye in the white face spun to life. Iruka stared, mesmerized and trembling. 

Everything ebbed. 

Iruka tried to buck under the unmovable hold. "Stop!.. _ugh..! Stop! Let me go_! You're going to make it _angry_...” 

Kakashi did not respond, eye fixed on Iruka, wanting in, sifting his thwarted mind carefully as fingers through grain. 

"You don't _understand_ \--" 

"No, I don't," Kakashi agreed. 

"K-Kakashi." Iruka writhed unable to get out of the jounin's grip, his eyes slipping. 

Frantically, his fingers found purchase on the canvas of Kakashi’s flack vest, clutching at him. "... no...something is.. please just listen...you’ll make it mad...then it will..." 

"Later," Kakashi pressed his face softly and briefly into his neck. "You need to come with me.” 

Before Iruka knew what was happening he saw fingers placed on his wrist then felt another on his forehead. A jutsu. He fought it but a hand then pressed down on his chest and the side of the uncovered nin's face slid down against his. Kakashi's voice was there, saying something, as he was lowered to the floor he barely felt beneath him. To his horror, he was immobile. Without ability to command his own limbs. But it wasn't the sickening grasp of the shadow this time. Firm arms drew him close, chest to chest. The first feel of natural heat he hadn't felt in so many days. He pressed closer, chin in soft pale hair, his numbed skin igniting in prickling points of pain as he warmed. 

"Sleep." Kakashi's breath was nothing more than a murmur in his ear. 

Iruka never heard it. He was gone. 

 

 

*****

 

 

The first thing he knew for certain was that he was no longer home. 

White. Tiles. Sterile. 

The acrid tang of disinfectant revealed where he was first. His hair hung in limp strands across his cheek. Dampness at his brow. He licked his lips and tasted salt. 

The room smelled faintly of pine and the strong scent of rubbing alcohol. The weight of a bottle shimmered faintly, hovering just above his head and swaying gently when he moved. Plastic tubing wound up around his forearm. Iruka blinked slowly at the IV. His entire body felt clammy with sweat. He grimaced in disgust at the feel of the flimsy cotton medical yukata sticking to his chest. 

Iruka dazedly made to sit up and couldn't. Tugging at his wrists he found he had been restrained with thick cuffs intricately encrypted to dull chakra. Not that he had much to bother blocking. He yanked weakly at them anyway, growling in confusion when he realized his ankles had been secured as well. His efforts caused a fit of painful coughing, and he sagged back onto the bed waiting for it to stop.

The room was dim--only lit from some meager source that filtered through the open door. It didn't take him long to spot the shadow unmoving in the corner, draped along the lines of the square of light on the floor.

He could hear voices, low and tense, coming from the hallway just outside his room. 

"Obviously someone has overlooked something." 

It was Kakashi.

Iruka was surprised when the shadow suddenly sprang back in on itself, bristling in agitation at the sound of the jounin's voice. It abruptly occurred to him that this was the first time he'd been permitted to set foot out of his apartment in days. The pitch black form reacted to his thoughts, sending a spiteful wave of pain through his body. Gasping for breath, he considered that maybe he hadn't been permitted at all. Had Kakashi done something? 

Someone cleared their throat impatiently. "Every test has shown no indication of head trauma."

"Because there isn't any." Kakashi answered blandly.

"You say he made contact with some sort of seal?"

"I've been telling you guys that all night long."

"His disorientation are all within limits due to the fever. He’ll start responding with fluids and--"

"I've also been telling you that's not it!" 

"Look, the Hokage has been alerted just as you asked," the someone hastily explained. "Maybe she can tell us more about this seal he’s tampered with.” 

"He wasn't tampering. He was on orders." 

Iruka hadn't dared breathe during the exchange, only letting out a small sound when the owner of the irritated voice finally came into view. 

"You're awake," Kakashi looked exhausted. "That's good." 

The sight of him brought the overwhelming certainty that Kakashi would surely get him out of here. If he got far enough away from the shadow maybe he could tell him what was happening. They could cut off his arm with the mark on it for all he cared. But the thing in the corner wiped that hope away by inserting another idea neatly into his head. Kakashi had brought him here because there was something terribly wrong with him. They all know, the shadow told him, and they were going to take him apart to figure out why. The elite nin had brought Iruka here and let them tie him up like a trophy animal so these people could discern just exactly how far down the disease went. Iruka shut his eyes as the shadow went on. They would discover just how polluted and unhinged their precious Academy teacher really was when they carved him to pieces... 

"..no..." he hissed through clenched teeth. "... I'm not...I'm not..."

"You okay?"

Iruka searched Kakashi's face with the unease of not being able to sense the jounin's presence in any way. That last thought gave him pause and his disquiet deepened. 

"A-Are you... Is this a clone?" 

Kakashi hadn't moved from the dim light of the hospital corridor and Iruka didn't like the wary expression on his face at all. 

"I don't need these." Iruka made and unmade fists as he strained to half sit up. "Please take them off." 

The jounin had remained quiet but when he finally did speak, it was steady and deliberate. 

"You can't tell." More of a statement when it should have been a question. 

"H-Huh?” Iruka caught his breath, worrying at his trapped wrist. 

"You can't tell I'm not a clone." 

Iruka began to shake, unwilling to answer, knowing he'd somehow revealed something that he wasn't supposed to. 

"Why am I here?" 

"You weren't doing so great when I found you." 

"Found me?" His heart raced and his chest began to heave in panic. Had the shadow allowed him roam? Where had he ended up this time? Wandering the forest? Maybe out in the middle of a iced over lake? 

"In your apartment." 

"My apartment." Iruka repeated dumbly. "You found me in my apartment." 

Kakashi cocked his head at him. "You don't remember that do you?" 

"I...uh...of course I do," Iruka mumbled. Remember what exactly? He bit at his lower lip knowing he had checked out again. "I was in my apartment stuck with that...that..." he trailed off as the thing's voice began to pound relentlessly in his head.

"With what?" the other man prompted. 

Iruka's mouth worked but the words wouldn't come. He wanted to yell and scream but the shadow stayed his tongue. 

Kakashi attempted a grin. "With that broken water heater?" 

The joke fell flat and the jounin didn't have the heart to even laugh at himself. Kakashi shifted before he came to the side of Iruka's bed and placed cool fingertips on the back of his neck. It was obviously meant to settle him but Iruka could not stop shaking. 

“You have a pretty bad fever.” Kakashi murmured his explanation as though that might help. “They keep saying it’s not unheard of to have blank spots but—“ 

If Iruka’s wrists weren’t strapped down, he’d have tried to throw a punch. 

“That’s not what this is—" He managed, an edge of hysteria in his voice. The words were the most he'd ever gotten past his tormenter so far and he felt the seething promise of retribution from its silent huddle in the corner of the room. He pushed his luck and tried it again. "You know it isn't!" 

Kakashi dropped his contact and took a step back, hands raised innocently. He scratched the back of his head. “Well, technically I have no idea.”

"I'm trying to tell you.... there's something," With some despair, Iruka felt the shadow take notice his small rebellion and cut it short. "... I'm trying ..."

"I get that," Kakashi's voice was strained. "So just tell me." 

“Can't you just shut up and listen!” Iruka heard himself snarl in frustration. Kakashi momentarily obeyed, something in the set of his eyes changing, like a pack dog backing down meekly. 

The shadow took that moment to flood Iruka with contempt and gratification.

"You haven't been yourself," Kakashi said quietly. "Not since that mission."

Iruka felt his stomach lurch at the mention it. 

"I've just been tired that's all." Hearing the excuse spoken out loud suddenly sounded utterly ludicrous. 

"That isn't all, Iruka," Kakashi sighed. "I know that much."

So this was it. 

Everything he had feared was happening now. Just like the shadow said. They were all going think he'd gone crazy without ever knowing the truth. His thoughts turned unwanted to his missing evening walk from the Tower and the haze of the last few days. Of all of the time he'd lost— The shadow had had him in its thrall before he'd ever even left that shrine. Iruka wanted to throw up at how stupid and careless he'd been. And now what? He was tied to a bed and being regarded as a lunatic.

"We will figure this out." Kakashi spoke softly. Gentle fingers found his wrist even though Iruka twitched away. "I promise you that."

The creature in the far corner seemed fixed on Iruka's stare as it pulsated and contracted like a slow heart beat.

"I'm sorry," the jounin was looking down. "I should have noticed sooner."

Iruka's breath was coming shorter and faster. Promises. Apologies. For what? All of this was his own fault.

"Just hang in there," he told him. "Inoichi-sama and Ibiki-sama are on their way."

The words hung in the air like poisoned smoke.

A high-ranking member of the Intelligence Division and the commanding officer of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force. Iruka knew very well what that combination meant. If they thought the memory lapses were interesting wait until Inoichi-sama started burrowing into his brain. They would be fascinated to discover Iruka's magical shadow friend no one else could see and that liked to make him do things... 

Iruka couldn't take it. 

Panic surged and obliterated everything else. With his eyes screwed tight against the burn of tears, he flung his head back and started to struggle violently.

" _Iruka._ " 

He blinked angrily up at the man leaning over him, trying to twist away from the hands pushing down firmly on Iruka's shoulders. 

"Get off me!" he hissed, hating the tremor in his voice. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. Especially a jounin that could record it for all time to play back whenever he felt like it. Was that why he was here? The shadow was there urgently speaking in his ear telling him that it was true. The shadow knew that Kakashi was only there to mock him. Iruka whipped his head back and forth, wrenching his hands and feet in the binds. No, Kakashi wouldn't... the man didn't even know what was happening... did he? The shadow flowed through him and warped his panic into a keen fine edge. This was just a stop over before they took him away and locked him up forever in the confines of the T&I. Darkness spiraled around his conscious, annihilating every last shred of defiance the chunin held on to. Seizing under the onslaught, Iruka felt any uncertainty of the truth in the murmured words completely vanish. He knew the shadow must be right. Kakashi was going to let those men tear him apart while he watched. 

"Don't...please don't let them do it--" he forced himself to breathe. "Please..."

" _Iruka stop_ , you're hurting yourself--" Kakashi’s voice came in a rush. 

There was something wet and hot running down his wrists and ankles. The far off sting of discomfort seemed nothing compared to the coughing that wracked his frame. He wheezed in and out gradually realizing Kakashi was on top of him, holding him down and hindering his movement. The shadow slid through the air, coiling up his IV stand and wrapping tightly around Iruka's throat. A calm washed over him at the sound of its ceaseless mumblings and everything began to make sense again. All of his tensed muscles began to relax.

"What the hell is going on in here?"

It was a strong female voice that caused him to open his eyes. 

A blond woman stood in the doorway with arms crossed firmly over her chest. Iruka felt the weight shift off of him and saw Kakashi turn awkwardly to greet her with a small bow. She threw him a glare before striding to the bed side and picking up Iruka's chin to look him in the eyes. Turning his face briefly from side to side he could only stare back up at her in detached confusion. 

She unceremoniously yanked his medical gown up and ran her gaze up and down his exposed body. Some part of him was ashamed and he tried to pull his thighs together but couldn't because of the restraints. His bare arms were inspected in turn.

"All of these bruises," she said. "These were not sustained from the mission."

"No," the jounin confirmed tightly. "Those are new. He has them all over his back and shoulders as well."

"What's this?" she was holding his right arm, examining the cut that went across the inside of his elbow. "This is a fresh bleed."

Iruka thought it was appropriate that they were speaking as if he weren't even there because he wasn't quite sure he really was.

"Funny you should ask," Kakashi said. "He wouldn't stop scratching at it."

She flipped the gown back down. "He's been acting like this all night?"

"I suspect it's been more like most of the week."

The woman righted herself and turned to leave. Iruka considered her burning amber eyes and wondered exactly who she might be.

"You," she barked in Kakashi's direction. "My office."

The jounin gave Iruka one last look before hesitantly following her out of the room. Experimentally rotating his hands he found they moved easier now that there was blood. The cuffs had been made to block chakra but he didn't need any for what he was going to do. He wasn't going to lay here and wait to be dragged off into some basement to have his mind flayed and dissected. There wasn't much time and he was so weak. But he could do it. He could get the hell out of here.

_Follow._

The shadow would help him.

_The reliquary must endure._

Iruka nodded miserably.

_Follow._

He watched the black shape form by his bedside, elongating and stretching to touch his trapped wrist. The thing seemed much more brash and substantial with that jounin and the lady no longer in the room. The cuff began to loosen. As Iruka aided in the delicate process of escape his thoughts kept wandering back to the woman who had studied him like a bug under glass. Even though he was unable to sense chakra he could tell just by looking at her that she must possess a great deal of it.

That meant he had to be fast. Faster than this. He yanked one hand free. Stifling another grating fit of coughing he started on his other wrist then his ankles. Getting to a stand, he saw the open closet had some medi uniforms in it. He got dressed while listening to the steady demand of the voice compelling him to hurry. 

_Come._

With a shove, he opened the window and glanced around the hospital grounds for any nin. Seeing no one, he landed ungracefully in the snow below and stumbled into what cover the darkness had to offer. The shadow wanted him to leave the village. Iruka of course had no idea of which way to go until his tormenter nudged him in the direction of the looming barrier wall. 

He'd follow its base until he found a gate.

 

 

 

 

Iruka had been traveling for at least half an hour. It was slow going and he had to keep stopping to catch his breath or stifle a coughing fit that would draw every nin who may be looking for him for miles. After entering a patch of woods he began to move faster, the borrowed white uniform woefully thin, and his exposed hands and face starting to ache. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do after he left the village but it was literally out of his hands. The shadow had some plan and he wasn't a party to it. He was about to start moving again when heard something far above him in the trees.

It hadn't been much but it captured his attention.

Chakra or no he was still a Shinobi and he knew when he was being followed. The creature's voice slithered around and inside him urging Iruka to ignore it and continue. He resisted the staggering need to obey and focused on where he had detected the movement in the branches. There it was again. It was a rustling noise that was meant to be heard. Like a warning.

"I-I won't run," Iruka said carefully. "I wouldn't get very far anyway."

The flash of a robe and the person didn't quite land before him so much as just suddenly materialized. An ANBU had found him. Iruka considered his very limited options and decided to stand his ground for the time being. The impassive Cat mask was bowed down, fist and one knee to the ground in respect. No one gave him the time in the Tower, let alone this. Iruka knew this just must be more mockery. Like the sort the elite jounin and that woman had given him in the hospital.

"Iruka-san," it said. "Please return with me."

For an off wavering moment Iruka realized with a dull shock that it was the same ANBU that had found him all that time ago after the fall in the stairwell. 

"You came a lot sooner than I'd hoped," Iruka started to back away. "How many did Kakashi-san send looking?"

"None," the voice was low and hesitant. "I'm not here on his order." 

"Ibiki-sama then." Iruka listened closely to the shadow but all it did was pulse an incredible need for him to keep moving. "Tell him I said no thanks." 

The Cat minutely shook his head. "No one sent me."

He was barely listening, too busy trying to figure out some possible tactic that would allow him to get away and mostly alive. "I'm not going anywhere with you." Iruka wondered who he was kidding. He was no match for an ANBU even when he was in full form. "Do you hear me!"

"I understand. However, I still have to bring you back."

Iruka stared at the oddly polite ANBU wishing he had at least one single kunai to back up his meager claim of resistance. The Cat rose fluidly to a stand with its face still tilted down to the ground. The shadow lurched as it became even more impatient. Iruka groaned as it stirred under his skin, threatening to crush him from the inside if he did not comply soon.

"I-I can't go back," Iruka stammered. "You-You don't understand anything."

The Cat said nothing. 

Iruka wanted to knock the mask off. He wanted to hit something until it hit back. The shadow abruptly surged and gave him a vile burst of strength that was not his own. Knowing that grabbing an ANBU meant likely death, he did it anyway, curling his fist into the robe and bringing that blank face right up into his own. 

The body under his hands didn't tense or coil for a fight. The ANBU sagged, a weight that Iruka had to struggle to hold so its knees didn't hit the ground. There was only a whisper of a voice. 

"Kakashi sempai gave me my name." 

Iruka blinked down at the mask in confusion. 

"I will protect anything he has." 

Iruka didn't miss the 'sempai' and the word 'protect'. That meant loyalty. It didn't take much math to put it together. But if that jounin hadn't sent his pet ANBU that meant the operative had sent itself.

"So... So you've been watching me?" 

The Cat shifted uneasily in his grip. 

"And you do this without that jounin's knowledge."

He studied the ANBU as it seemed to hunker down further with a hint of a nod. Iruka knew Child Speak. He knew it well. This ANBU wasn't exactly proud to admit to have been following him for who knew how long. But if the Copy nin really didn't know he was missing yet, he still had a chance.

"Please," the Cat asked. "Don't make me have to force you to return."

Before Iruka could wonder at the sight of a pleading ANBU, he knew with utmost certainty that the shadow was done and finished with waiting.

"I told you," Iruka's vision began to darken and he knew with a sinking dread what was coming. "I-I can't do that."

He wanted to further warn the ANBU but he could no longer speak.

The clenched fists in the Cat's cloak fell away as he staggered backwards. Half blinded, Iruka landed hard on his knees as the thing inside him thrummed and grew, expanding from his mind to the ground below and the trees above. The fathomless pitch of its body churned ferociously, lashing snow around them and filling the air with the deep mournful sound of a baying horn on a battlefield. Pure ire was burning under Iruka's skin, searing the mark on his arm, and sending the dull booming voice like thunder through his skull. 

Iruka wanted to tell the ANBU to teleport far away from here as fast as he could.

He wanted to help him.

But it was already too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Jink and Robbie...


	4. The Master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Head's up, tags have been massively changed due to this story getting much larger than intended. Hope everyone is having a good holiday!
> 
> (I got a Kakashi hoodie for X-muz) <3

*****

Between the black drops of blood in the snow and the stagger of tracks, Iruka couldn't have traveled very far in the span of the hour Kakashi had spent with the Hokage. 

It hadn’t been an incredibly useful hour. The only conclusions either of them kept coming to just lead them back to an unknown seal in a remote shrine. Two facts that weren't very useful in the current scheme of things. At least Tsunade had actually listened to him. Iruka had been alone in that place for weeks and no one had any idea what had happened in that time besides Iruka's ramblings.

Kakashi had sent his dogs ahead and heard a rasping bark nearby. Landing on the other side of a chain link fence he found himself moving even faster as he picked up a much stronger and even more familiar scent of blood. One of the most unique variations he knew. He grit his teeth when he saw Shiba pawing the ground nervously in a scatter of frozen leaves and dirt. The ninken had found a body laying face down and half buried by the soft fall of snow.

"Inform the patrols," he told Shiba.

Kneeling down Kakashi gently turned the ANBU over and clenched his jaw at the cracked mask that he knew very well.

"Tenzo," Kakashi was careful with his neck as he checked the still body. "Can you hear me?"

"Sempai--" 

A gloved hand found Kakashi's arm and gripped hard. The sheer strength of it made the copy nin's breath come easier even as he winced at the pressure. After feeling a steady pulse he wouldn't care right now if his arm was snapped in two.

"What happened here? What did this?"

"I.... I don't know."

That's when Kakashi realized the arm he had under the ANBU's shoulders was horribly warm and the snow was going as black as the cloak Tenzo wore. Kakashi tossed the porcelain mask aside and quickly studied the skin of his face that was for the first time even whiter than his own.

"Kakashi," he wheezed. "There's something dark ... it's in him ... I saw it--"

He was half listening, maneuvering Tenzo's body carefully in his arms and put off as much healing chakra as he could while he lifted him up. A tug at his ankle swung his attention downward. Pakkun's snow dusted snout was ripping back and forth at the ankle of his boot. Kakashi's chakra bristled and sizzled, why couldn't he sense anything?

"BrrrBossoss!rrRRRgrrrrrBoSSS," Pakkun was too busy trying to yank him in his direction and couldn't talk between clamped jaws. 

Another body. It was some distance away, crumpled between the tree roots buried in snow and dressed in a white uniform making it practically invisible.

"Pakkun. Medi. From black ops, not the civilian corps. Go to Ibiki-sama."

The wide eyed dog turned tail and raced off to do as bid.

Kakashi felt his throat work as he looked back and forth numbly between the two fallen. Tenzo's body jerked in his arms with a whimper, shifting his weight closer to Kakashi's chest with a ragged breath. There was a seep of blood starting to run down Kakashi's arms and Tenzo's breathing was getting deeper and slower. The copy nin didn't freeze, he hadn't made that mistake in a long time. Trying to ignore the harsh cry of pain when he launched himself and Tenzo both upwards, at the arc of his ascent Kakashi teleported and they were right back in Iruka's empty hospital room.

"You have to find out what it is." Unable to keep his head up, Tenzo sagged onto his side as Kakashi lowered him onto the bed. "That thing is going to..."

"Don't worry about that now." Kakashi flexed his fists sticky with blood, unwilling to slide them out from Tenzo's limp body. His hold seemed the only thing keeping Tenzo from being completely formless and toppling flat onto the bed. His face was laying slack against Kakashi's bicep and his eyes were closed. "Listen Tenzo, we just need to get you into a big vase of water and give you plenty of sunlight." He managed a forced grin his friend did not see.

"That thing's going to... "

"-- do something bad," he murmured lowly. "I think I got that part down." Kakashi stepped hesitantly aside as a hushed but urgent team of doctors appeared. But he saw they had it. Tenzo was already breathing better as soon as their green chakra reached him.

"Tenzo--"

"Go!"

In moments, he was back out into the night listening for his dogs. He knew his pack and he would probably get there at about the same time as a league of advanced ANBU medi nin. It was good to be the infamous Kakashi of the Sharingan sometimes. They'd be there before he used the Kamui no Jikūkan to wrap the entire hospital right on top of Iruka.

 

*****

 

 

Kakashi thought he knew a little about going off the rails. He'd seen it plenty of times and even watched it destroy the only family he had. But what he was witnessing now was no gradual slide into some personal hell that caused guilt or battle fatigue. All of what was happening was because of that shrine in the mountains. Kakashi rubbed at his face and considered Iruka's sedate expression. Half of it was from actual sedatives that were running through an IV, the other from helpless exhaustion.

Also, Iruka was not happy to be back in a hospital bed. Especially not one in the Intelligence Division Unit.

"Okay, one more time," Kakashi pushed a hand back through his gray hair. His forehead was on the bed bar, his mask was down. "What is this... shadow? It talks you?"

"Not all the time."

"What does it say?"

Iruka turned his head away to look at the ceiling.

There had been a lot of this lately. This not answering any basic questions of any kind. Tenzo had said he'd seen something dark. Iruka had been going on and on about a shadow but that's all he'd explain. It was as if Iruka just _couldn't_ even if he wanted to. The frustration that welled up in his brown eyes whenever he was asked anything about it so obvious now. Which meant there were very good or very bad reasons Iruka was being manipulated into silence. Within the last few days he had slowly become disturbingly aware that Iruka was trapped in some way but he just couldn't figure just how. One thing was clear, whatever this shadow was, it was very much in control and capable of doing harm. And now, thanks to Kakashi, Iruka was now also trapped here in the one place he did want to be.

Down here in these hidden rooms there were people who knew how to force things out of a mind without having the need to speak at all. Then what would this shadow do with Iruka? Kakashi's thoughts went to the feel of Tenzo's blood soaking through his uniform. Already one person had almost been killed and that was just a confrontation. If it was so powerful to do that sort of damage to someone like Tenzo, why wasn't it attacking them all right now? Regardless, an interrogation would be dangerous for all those involved.

Kakashi already knew he couldn't let that happen. But he was still going to figure out what the hell this thing wanted with Iruka.

"Is it talking to you right now?"

Iruka didn't look at him, but his breathing became faster and he wet his lower lip.

He would take that as a yes. "Can I talk to it--"

" _No!_ " Iruka was straining to sit up, his eyes burning. "Don't ever even _try_!"

"Ok! Ok!" he quickly raised his hands, a bit startled at Iruka's vehemence. "I won't. I'm sorry."

Seated next to the bed, Kakashi began a slow cadence of banging his head against the metal rail. Iruka's nearest shackled hand jerked in vague protest. The accommodations weren't as comfy as the regular hospital but Kakashi had done the best he could given the circumstances. The view was terrible unless you liked cinder blocks and a rock door that only opened by wards. It was a dark and airless box and the worst thing was that Iruka didn't even seem to notice.

"Oi," Kakashi offered, picking up the bowl of soupy slop they wanted Iruka to eat. He'd lost even more weight since the mission. "If you have one spoon full of this we can all go to sleep."

"You don't have to."

"Have to what?"

"Be here."

Kakashi frowned at Iruka still staring blankly at nothing. His bandaged hands working absently in the metal restraints, his legs shaking when he felt the urge to get up and couldn't. Iruka had been dragged down into the facility kicking and literally screaming but he'd been talking about the shadow. When they had secured him in his 'room' Kakashi had gone to the nearest bathroom and threw up. Since they brought him down here to be observed, Kakashi had taken it upon himself to either doze in the straight back metal fold out chair next to him or throw caution to the authoritative wind and just sleep next to Iruka in his weird sterile prison bed. 

When he could. It turned into weeks and he was sent away more than once. The Hokage never seemed to send him for long though.

"Hey, look, remember the soup?" Kakashi tried to make it sound like the best thing that could ever happen.

Iruka's vague smile faded but he slowly nodded. He couldn't feed himself because of the restraints and it embarrassed him every time.

"I'm tired."

"Come on, don't be like that."

Iruka half sat up and took the spoonful.

A nurse poked her head in. "Is he eating?"

Kakashi pushed the spoon back into Iruka's mouth with a wide grin he hoped she could discern behind the mask. He was well aware that the confines of those rooms weren't granted to many and he knew how much he got away with his trespasses just because of his allowances of rank and general favor. However, he did not like it when he was questioned on whether or not he could manage to feed someone soup. 

"Make it look good, Iruka," he mumbled. "Or I'll get in trouble."

Iruka glowered.

"How about the possibility that they'll put you on a feeding tube?"

Iruka miserably opened his mouth for more gray slop.

"That's my boy."

Making sure he could stuff enough soup into Iruka's face as he could he briefly excused himself to take a walk outside for some air. The basement levels always got to him. On a blistering cold day with no one out doing anything he of course would spot Naruto walking down the street and coming straight at him. He imagined the conversation.

_Kakashi-sensei! What are you doing right outside of the security medical unit of the Intelligence Division on such a fine day as this?_

_Nothing big, kiddo! Your **better** sensei is just talking to shadow people and is now on lock down!_

_Goodness! That is unfortunate!_

_Catch you for ramen later?_

_That would perfectly wonderful!_

Kakashi teleported right back into the depths of the unit before the kid could see him. 

While reflecting on how he might have made Naruto a bit too articulate in his pretend exchange, he paused in front of Iruka's door at the sound of voices. There were three people filling Iruka's small room. And more importantly his chair. Besides being questioned on basic care, he also didn't like it when someone else was there at all. Most especially three particular medi that always seemed to be in Iruka's room whenever he wasn't and then would not immediately leave upon seeing him. They were very hard to mistake from the other doctors. The three young men looked like triplets. Tall, black hair, and unusual eyes of pure pitch that Kakashi had only seen a variation of in Snow Country as a teen ANBU.

He frowned.

Catching sight of the Commander coming briskly down the hall, Kakashi caught up to the tall man.

"Excuse me, Ibiki-sama. Who may I ask are those nin constantly in Iruka's room?" Kakashi decided subtle was a waste of time at this point. "I've been around a few years and eh, I've never seen them before."

Ibiki turned ponderously, his hand on his chin and searched the cavernous corridors that seemed to reach in every direction.

Kakashi mentally snapped his fingers. "The nin for uh, 0-492 designation." He should have known to use code first. This whole shadow that lived in Iruka's head thing was really throwing his game.

"Ah, Iruka Umino's specialists."

"For what?"

"They were sent by the daimyo," the interrogation master nodded absently. "To consult about our recent... seal issue."

Iruka was an issue. Kakashi would have punched him the throat if he thought it would help. He put on a smile instead. "Sent from where?"

"The Land of Iron."

Watching the man stride away Kakashi glanced back down the dim corridor. He supposed that made sense. That's where Iruka had found the seal. The thing. The shadow? With a yawn and holding two bowls of soup slop, hey solidarity, he paused in Iruka's doorway. Iruka was fitfully sleeping but those three black eyed nin were sitting around the room absently in a way that made Kakashi think of a family waiting on a fading person on their deathbed. It for some reason made him very angry. More than angry. It made him want to break things that were alive.

He was about to say something but then he heard one of the men speak. Backing up into the hallway he realized they hadn't noticed his presence.

"Master," the only one seated was directly by Iruka's bedside. "We three are prepared."

Iruka looked at him and said something Kakashi couldn't hear. Whatever it was caused all three men to nod simultaneously. The copy nin pushed up his hitai-tie to study them. There was a brief whirl, something dark, that flowed throughout the room before retreated rapidly back towards.... Iruka. As it rushed around his skin Iruka let out a stifled gasp and shuddered violently.

"Get out." Kakashi told them. "Now."

They quickly did.

Iruka blinked, saw him, and slowly smiled. It was a weak smile but he'd take it. Kakashi's anger simmered under the surface of his well placed easy grin. He had to do this the right way or they'd go in the question circle game until it was too late. 

If it wasn't already.

Kakashi was about to ask a few well placed questions but suddenly stopped himself. Ibiki-sama was standing right behind him. He should have known immediately that the man was there because of Iruka's stare over the copy nin's shoulder. That expression of fear and abject sadness was something he'd been getting used to seeing more and more everyday when anyone came near his bedside. Like Iruka was expecting something.

"He's come for me." Iruka was quiet and resigned. "I have to go, Kakashi."

Ibiki-sama righted himself and lifted his chin. "Yes, our team needs to speak to the subject."

"Subject?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "I thought he was an issue."

"We need to ascertain what he has been told to do."

"You must be joking."

"He will be eventually released after an interrogation."

Kakashi didn't know what to do. "How long does eventually mean?"

Ibiki glared down at him. 

"I just want to know how long you intend on-"

"Kakashi..."

"Forget it. No way," The jounin felt something snap and found himself stepping up to the big man. "Have you even _spoken_ to the Hokage!"

"You are dismissed."

Two bowls of soup slop shattered on either side of Ibiki's head against the wall and Kakashi really liked the look on the torture specialist's face. Especially with slop dripping off of it.

"You will not be permitted back into this facility," Ibiki-sama said calmly dabbing at his brow. "Your privileges are revoked."

"No problem."

"An escort will be provided."

"Of course."

Kakashi looked at Iruka who hadn't moved move than an inch since the exchange. Still staring at the wall. He walked down the hallway already knowing how'd be back in within 30 minutes. One detour, a few turns, and he was right back with a transformation jutsu. He'd even found an intel uniform too so he wouldn't have to maintain clothes along with a new face. Heading down to the depths of the compound where they liked to ask people questions in unpleasant ways, he halted when he heard the worrisome sound of excited voices. 

"Those three nin from the Iron," a civilian spoke low and hectic. "They just helped 0-492 get out of here through the lower service entrance."

He knew who 0-492 was. That was Iruka's patient/prisoner designation.

"Why?" someone else was demanding.

"How should I know!" they answered. "But after they got him out the patrol found the rest of them all in the access tunnel. They cut their own throats. They were supposed to be bringing the patient to an interview."

So Iruka made another jail break. This time with some help and all within the mere minutes he'd been away. Maybe the last time he'd had some help as well. He took off towards where he thought Iruka might be headed. 

 

*****

 

 

Maneki made a face. " _That's_ him?"

"Yes." Ko gave a single nod.

From a concealed perch on a tree limb the two men had procured an unobstructed view of their target approaching below them from the unguarded village gate. Not remaining on the road for long, the man had veered into the forest and was heading straight for them. There was no need to use chakra to follow its passage considering all noise the man was making stumbling through the thick underbrush. 

"Huh." With a flick of his black hair from his eyes, Maneki snorted. "I thought the Leaf nin were supposed to be a big deal."

"They are."

Ko wished his partner didn't like to talk so much and all of the time. He glanced over to make sure the younger man wasn't about to make a move before being told. They were practically identical, Ko was slightly taller but with the same completely onyx eyes that lacked any white even along their rims. Their lord's doctrine had made their small clan this way. They were his servants.

"The Leaf is legendary," Ko continued. "That is why the Master choose one from this village.

"Coulda picked an elite at least."

An abrupt wave of rancor, roiled through Ko's head, and shuddered through Maneki. It pleased Ko to see his stunned fellow clansman have to stab a shuriken into the tree to hold onto under the force of their lord's annoyance. It pleased him even more to hear the wounded chunin cry out from the distance with the force of it. However, the presence was fainter than he knew it usually to be. His lord had been confronted by something or things while attempting to depart Konoha and it had weakened Him. Somethings with very old kekkei genkai.

Nevermind. His Glory would soon be back walking the land to guide and show the world.

"They will easily forget about a missing school teacher," Ko finally breathed, one hand on the limb and the other on Maneki to keep them both upright. "If one of their holy jounin disappeared they would come looking."

"But-But this Umino doesn't even have a blood limit?"

"No," he said. "But he's still is a chunin from the Hidden Leaf."

"I guess," Maneki went on dismissively, regaining his composure. "Still, doesn't look like much."

The nin limping below them matched the image Ko had been given from his Master to his own mind's eye. He'd been shown others things as well. Average everyday things this teacher did everyday. Ko had instantly disliked the easy smile on the young chunin's face as he navigated the cobbled streets, paused to chat with a vendor, shook loose change from his pocket to buy a bag of candy for children. 

"Just leave it to me," Maneki withdrew a chunai that dangled with several scripts of paper. "I'll have him ready to go in no time--"

The stinging burst of chakra Ko sent tearing behind his partner's eyes were enough to shut him up and not blow their cover. The Land of Fire's black ops could be anywhere guarding their territories using methods unseen. To act rashly would end their mission before it began. Maneki gave out a breath of muffled laughter when the chunin stumbled and failed to catch himself on his hands to break his fall.

"I see why you're so worried, Ko."

"Do not underestimate him, fool," he said simply. "We cannot make any mistakes."

Yet something still did not register and he wanted to agree to Maneki's assessment. With the chunin now so close it was clear he was hardly noteworthy, a common civil servant in his bearing. For some reason he was wearing a uniform of a ranking intel officer which Ko knew with certainty did not belong to him. All he knew was that this person was a shinobi that had endured a standard chunin assessment and, as his Master had assured him, could still be a concern even if badly injured.

Which this Iruka Umino certainly was. Their Master wasn't known for his gentle hand. 

"He can't even stand up." Maneki muttered, still reeling from the painful chastising thrum in his skull. 

Ko sighed. He could well understand the confusion. 

Maneki considered the nin sprawled in the snow thoughtfully. "Don't think they will waste time looking for him for long."

"Why do you say that?"

"Like you said," he shrugged. "Who would send ANBU for a nobody?"

His young partner Maneki was green, barely in the conclave for just over a year. Barely out of his teens and ready to leap head first into anything without much thought to his actions. But there only Five of them that served the Master and if things had gone as planned three were gone now. So just two left of what used to be hundreds. But Ko thought his partner may be correct. No one but their conclave of Two and their Master knew why it might be worth it to the Leaf to go bothering to look for their school teacher.

No one else knew Iruka Umino was the requilary. 

"It is time," Ko decided. "Let's wrap him up."

The chunin blinked up warily when they landed on either side of him. Rolling over onto his back his panting breath fogged in the air as he tried to get his elbows underneath himself to sit up. He didn't appear incredibly surprised to them. More like helplessly infuriated and trying very hard to stand up.

"That _thing_ sent you," he coughed in a scratchy voice. "T-The shadow."

Maneki thought the word was funny. But Ko didn't like the term Umino had used. It was disrespectful. Belittling. Blasphemous. Whipping out the first seal, he fell down into a kneel onto the chunin's shoulders shoving him hard back onto the ground with a startled gasp.

" _What are you--ah!_ "

The requilary stopped thrashing after the sticky seal settled over his eyes, nearly stopped breathing when another was slid over his mouth. It burned gold and coalesced, forming over his lips, down under his tongue, and jaw. The charka wire they wrapped around his wrists and forearms bit in as he started to fight again, desperate strangled sounds coming from behind the glow of paper wrapped in and around his mouth. He kicked and pulled but he couldn't get free from the wires that dug and sliced into the wounds he already had. Strapping more around his legs, Ko wondered when he would stop, knowing he was damaging himself.

"This will take a few minutes before we can go," Maneki patted the chunin's writhing thigh. "So you might as well relax."

Ko turned towards the road knowing the waver of the yellow light might be seen.

In fact when he listened closely to his protections that were only set off by shinobi, he knew it would be very soon.

 

*****

 

 

The first thing Kakashi did was throw a net of wards so wide that it would throw every owner of any shred of chakra for miles. At least for a enough time for him to find Iruka first. The second thing he did was summon his pack of ninken and send them looking.

Leaving the street lamps behind, he flashed through the black skeletons of trees and followed the increasingly haphazard tracks that wandered away from the unit entrance. He heard his dogs in all different directions which made the free fall churning in his gut become worse. Someone else had also made sure to hinder anyone's efforts to track in this area besides him. The snow was falling down heavy and thick without a hint of wind. He kept having to stop and retrace where Iruka had changed direction and then doubled back. It was if he had no idea where he was going....

Kakashi looked up at the top of the barrier wall and let his gaze fall until he realized he was only a short distance from the west gate.

Letting out a silent whistle to rally his scattered pack, he was at the gate in moments. The tracks. His heart beat picked up as he saw they were headed straight out of town. He followed the traces of increasingly labored footsteps, stopping at a spot where Iruka had obviously stumbled leaving two red hands prints in a snow bank. Another odd turn and strange change to immediate south, then he was plunging into the surrounding forest. He had to be close now but he couldn't sense anyone nearby.

But he could _see_ something.

There was a flickering luminescence coming from somewhere back among the trees. His gaze scanned in every direction trying to pinpoint its exact source. It seemed to come from everywhere and no where at the same time. Focusing back on the tracks he forced himself not to be distracted by anything but where they would lead.

Kakashi heard him before he saw him.

"Damn it..." he ghosted through the woods, his heartbeat in his throat. The smothered sounds Iruka was making reminded him of a snared animal in pain. Kakashi moved faster as the wavering glow grew stronger. He abruptly skidded to a halt. 

There, just a dozen yards away, was Iruka writhing in the snow with a strange light coming from his face.

Kakashi stilled and checked the path of the tracks. The Sharingan revealed nothing besides a confusing cascade of energy he didn't recognize. He stepped cautiously closer. There was something covering Iruka's eyes. And his nose and mouth... Not very concerned about walking into some kind of ambush anymore, Kakashi surged forward seeing as he closed the distance that Iruka's entire body had been bound tightly and cruelly with wire.

" _Iruka!_ I'm right here!"

Iruka snapped his head towards the sound of his name, towards Kakashi, and his heaving chest slowed into stuttering short gasps. He couldn't breathe, Kakashi knew, and he had to get whatever was on his face off and--

The gold light suddenly flared molten hot, gushing across the ground and streaming through the air. Kakashi tossed an arm up over his face and staggered backwards at the searing blaze waiting for the fire that never came. Stunned, he rubbed at his eyes while casting his senses for whatever was going to come at him next. Nothing came next and after several moments his vision cleared enough for him to see the forest was dark again with the gentle drift of snow. And he was the only one there.

"... Where are you..."

Remembering the tracks he dazedly followed them to the tree's base where he'd seen Iruka just seconds ago.

But the tracks just.... stopped where Iruka had been laying.

Kakashi knelt down and studied the dark bloody gashes in the snow where Iruka's wrists had been for longer than a brief stumble. There was a rust stained coat cast off several feet away. No sign of tracks up, down or anywhere around. Kakashi looked down at the ripped jacket knowing what was worn under it was no better that regular nin sleeveless blacks. Iruka would be cold. If he was even alive.

No.

Sending himself well above the tops of the trees, he whipped around a spiral parameter for a mile and sensed nor found anything.

He landed back right back into his own foot prints where Iruka last was. Where he was suffocating. The scent of fear still lingered no matter how vague in the frigid air mixing with the mournful baying of his dogs coming from the far off cliffs, the training grounds and even the lake. They couldn't pick up on Iruka. They'd lost him. 

He lost him.

Kakashi turned in a frantic circle.

" _No._ "

 

tbc


	5. The Cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on it. Thanks for all the feedback guys, I will feed the backs. as always, thanks Kir/Jink

There had been a man and he had spoken softly.

His words echoed faintly in Iruka’s memory even as the cruel shadow scratched for more.

A man with heavy grey eyes and a bizarre shock of silver hair who had been warm when he was cold, laying very close beside him in a narrow horrible bed that he was not permitted to leave. The man did not speak very often or, when he did, in small quiet words that made Iruka feel not so lost. But he did leave from time to time. Iruka could no longer monitor seconds or even minutes so he had no idea how long the absences were. When he was there the man had made a very big point of making him eat a watery soup that was described as full of protein. When it got quiet and no one else was around the man would carefully kiss the side of Iruka's mouth.

When the pale man wasn't there at all, others had taken him to a separate room—seemingly far from that one—and had asked him questions he wanted to answer but knew he could not. He didn't want to cry or get angry but he had done both when they asked over and over. They’d hurt him when he’d simply stopped speaking altogether.

But he was not in that place anymore. Now there were no harsh lights, just the dull flicker of a lone candle. He was some place now where light was scarce.

Iruka could hear the past.

_Plink_

_Plosh_

_Plink Plosh_

_Plink_

The bright sounds of copper coins tossed by children into the deep blue wishing pools rang like laughter in his ears. His father had always allowed him at least one wish if he’d asked fervently enough, and promised perfect obedience with vows to go straight to bed when told.

One wish. Once a year. He never really noticed when they didn't come true. It was all in the act really, the making of a small dream, and watching his coin glitter and drift out of sight under the shimmering surface. The shadow whirling sluggishly inside him made a low grating sound that could have been a chuckle. There were two human voices around him suddenly, mingling and twisting with the shadow’s incessant murmurs.

"I do believe he is back among the living."

"Are you sure, Ko?" A snort. "He's been talking a lot in his sleep."

"That isn't sleep. And I wouldn't call it speaking."

"Okay, he's been moaning in a blackout for three days."

"I've been trying to ignore it. It's extremely annoying."

"Who do you think this ‘Kakashi’ is?"

"Haven’t the faintest. His pet fish?"

"A fish?"

"I told you, Maneki." Now a sigh. "I've been ignoring it."

Turning his head, Iruka grinded his cheek and pressed it into wet grit, an inescapable brackish scent thick in his mouth. So potent it was almost beyond a smell, a tangible hang in the air he could choke on, salty and biting on his tongue. His stinging eyes flickered open to frigid and humid darkness. A dull echo of a far off roar disjointed his senses even further, his numb limbs bound in wire not allowing him to push hair out of his eyes and where it clung damply to his neck. Muted panic rose and the shadow moved to soothe, its voice sliding back forth in an oddly gentle caress.

_Plink_

__Plosh_ _

 

He could see it now--an outcropping of jagged rock hanging like an icicle above his head. A cave then, a tear drop of water forming at its narrowed tip about to fall. Iruka blinked at the clear pool next to his face as its surface rippled, wondering at the fleshy ropes of bloated green seaweed that lay around it and over his body as if to bind him further than the wires already wound tight about his flesh.

"So much closer now."

"Yes. The reliquary has gotten rest."

"What if our Master requires more time?"

"Then we wait."

"For a Leaf, this Umino does not need much water."

"I've already explained this to you Maneki. The Leaf are exceptional."

Reverent voices, surely the two black eyed men he had met in the forest. Their voices wavered like the trembling of the weak candle light, reverberating against the glistening stone walls surrounding them.

As a shinobi Iruka had seen relatively little of the world. He wasn't skilled enough to be sent very far or very long for much of anything. But he'd seen glimpses of the ocean twice in his life--once as a child with his mother and another on a mission. The smell of briny decay and the constant lethargic but powerful roar of the waves came back to him sometimes in dreams when he feared time and its lessons were relentlessly crashing closer and closer. The ocean had done more than humble the landlocked child he had been, its vast depth had terrified him. The never ending blue expanse of it had given him a strange fear about how large a thing could be.

The meager light was suddenly blocked by something settled beside him in a crouch.

"Now that you are awake," the unfamiliar man said conversationally in the gloom, black eyes like pits in his face. "...I really don't want to listen to you. However..."

The other man-- much younger--interrupted with eager curiosity. "Who or what is a Kakashi? I am willing to bet it is not a fish.”

"I.... I don't... I ...." Iruka's voice was little more than a rasp. Water. They’d mentioned something about water. "...I don't know."

"We figured as much."

Iruka watched one of them take out what looked like a gag. The cool smooth stone and wooden piece it was attached to pressed down harshly on his tongue as it was forced inside. He heard his startled breath catch in the back of his throat, his mouth working on the intrusion as he weakly jerked his head from side to side unable to rid the crushing grip on his chin.

"Our Master prefers you this way."

His bleary eyes went wide when they showed him the mask. Before they put it on his face, they let him have a moment to study it, as if they were expecting him to admire its sleek horned shape. It was pure black, like the thing rooting restlessly around in his mind. It was not unlike an ANBU guise however featureless. Narrow slashes had been cut into the surface to allow the wearer to barely see. Now so much harder to breath. His vision was all but gone. After that came a knife to slice the wires at his legs and his cramped thighs fell apart forcing a loud groan as his abruptly freed muscles burned.

"I can feel It." A fisted hand clenched on Iruka's knee and crept upward.

"Me too." Another hand set on his other thigh. "He is very close."

Iruka tried to push back away from them, the heels of his boots digging and gaining no purchase in the wet sand as he struggled, wrists and forearms trapped folded against his stomach.

"Master has nearly arrived."

 

 

*****

 

 

Tenzo hadn’t always appreciated his own good fortune.

Orochimaru had done many things to create and mold his physiology but one of the most perverse, yet undeniably useful, was the ability to regenerate. Only three days in the clutches of the Hokage's personal staff and he could walk again without too much effort. He hadn't even tried to harm one of them. He had learned how to be good from watching the very bad. Growing up being an interesting experiment for two different madmen did that kind of thing to you.

He wasn't exactly sure where Kakashi would be but he had three good guesses. The black stone carved full with names of ghosts, a small functional room that housed two framed pictures or... just gone. The third option was usually the case, mission or not. Kakashi was adept at not being anywhere imagined by his adversaries or advocates. Tenzo knew this very well of him. He knew many things about his former captain that many others did not.

Therefore he’d gone directly to Iruka sensei's home.

Kakashi appeared to be engaged in something close to sleep, his body finally caving in on itself after many days of fruitless searching. At least, that was the tale as far as Tenzo could piece it together. His senior officer was barely conscious in front of the academy's teachers book cluttered kotatsu. The fight had ended not in their favor and now Kakashi was alone with his loss.

Tenzo knew better than anyone that loss made for very bad company.

Wisely, he’d summoned chakra first before attempting to touch the jounin. He knew what the copy nin was capable of even in sleep. He felt nothing but relief when Kakashi remained motionless, eyes closed and breathing low and shallow. For now, there was some version of peace. Tenzo took in the silence, drank in the cool quiet like water while it lasted and waited for the storm. As much as his own eyes wanted rest he maintained his watch. It was no surprise when the lights of the house began flickering. Kakashi had begun to stir. Tenzo braced himself.

A keening whistle crackled in the silence, the mark of chakra gathering in Kakashi’s limp hand.

“Kakashi?” Tenzo whispered, hoping maybe he'd be heard.

The body beneath him ignited, roiling, violent energy beginning to snap and arc around them in sharp flashes. The bulb in the fixture above flared white hot then exploded in a rain of fine glass. With a curse, Tenzo summoned his muscles to lengthen and wind about Kakashi’s torso before the half-awake jounin found enough awareness to throw him through a wall and the buildings next door. The creak and groan of flexible branches twined about Kakashi’s legs, pinioning his wrists to the floor beneath him to absorb the shocks of chakra popping around the body he now embraced.

“It's me.” Tenzo barely said it. "Just me." He’d only once before restrained Kakashi like this, wasn’t quite sure if even his body could withstand the full onslaught of his captain's power if it were unleashed mindlessly and unchecked. Kakashi was awake now but if he heard Tenzo at all he didn’t show it. Muscles tense and strained, he struggled against the hard winding wood encircling his limbs, one ignited fist ready to tear into the first flesh it found.

A mercy, Tenzo reminded himself, that he had none at this moment to offer.

“He’s gone…” Kakashi uttered in a low voice he rarely used. “He’s gone.”

Tenzo now realized he was panting with his efforts, placing his lips as close as he dared next to Kakashi’s ear.

“I know.”

“They took him.” Kakashi snarled in a gasp.

“Then we’ll get him back.” Tenzo said simply, flinching when Kakashi bucked in his grasp, shards of electricity stuttering silently between them. Tenzo only strengthened his grip. Kakashi’s moon white skin was flushed shades of hectic red, unstable. If Tenzo were a lesser shinobi, he would be far more panicked to witness Kakashi in this state. But no, his blended wood chakra would hold and stay holding until he commanded it. This could take a while. He breathed with Kakashi, tried to settle his mind while their chests went into synch.

"Tenzo..."

"Yes, sempai."

Kakashi’s shoulders heaved, the crackling fire slowly receding with a deep ragged breath. Tenzo inhaled the reek of ozone in the air and prayed his limbs weren’t about to combust into flames. He wrinkled his nose. It still smelled like the promise of violence in the room, decidedly unhelpful. Softly, he released oil from his very much living bark and let it seep into Kakashi’s skin. The exotic sap produced by his chakra was never much use to him per se but the very few that had come into its contact reported that the cooling scent of it could relieve and subdue. Right now, however, Tenzo just wanted Kakashi to be in the same room with him again. Kakashi’s muscles slowly went slack. The room faded back to darkness as the flickering dance of the chidori was silenced then gone.

Tenzo breathed out in relief.

“Are you here, Kakashi?” Tenzo placed a tentative flesh hand on his captain’s throat, feeling him breathe.

"I certainly hope not."

Tenzo let himself smile just a little.

 

 

*****

 

 

Tsunade had been around a very long time. It took an extraordinary force to create true anger or surprise her. The weight of the Hokage’s station was what it was and nicely dealt with lots of sake. She bore the title with the dignity the Village expected and strength she had always possessed. Seated at her desk, poring over her scroll and few lotto numbers, she let the steam from her tea cool before choosing to speak.

"We have learned a few things."

Kakashi said nothing.

"The three medi that killed themselves," she went on. "Their corpses have been studied and identified. They carried with them a strange chakra. They were storage."

"Storage?"

"This... shadow Iruka spoke of, it wasn't strong enough to get out of there on its own. It needed help, and it used well, three chakra carriers to lend it the power it needed to get out of the village. Namely far away from the many powerful jounin that could stop it. In this instance, the T&I unit which is warded so heavily it makes getting out a bit of a hassle."

Kakashi considered her words. "Why didn't it just make house in one of its... suicidal batteries?"

"It made a choice," she folded manicured hands under her chin. "We have reason to believe that the mission to investigate the seal was purposely arranged so that a Leaf nin would be sent to that shrine. This shadow wanted a particular host.” She sighed, sipping idly at her tea. “Konoha has, you may recall, a bit of a reputation."

Kakashi suddenly had something of a picture, not in its entirety, but something. "So this thing wanted a Leaf nin. It got a Leaf nin. But it was weak for a while until it got stronger and stronger... living in Iruka." He felt sick.

"That seems to be the case."

"It found a Leaf nin to get it free from its seal prison," he ran a hand through his tumultuous hair leaving it in more of a mess than it usually was. "What would it want with Iruka now? Why not just kill him?”

Tsunade, who did not usually mince her words or hesitate to deliver them, bit down on her answer. It did not go unnoticed.

Kakashi growled impatiently.

“I am Hokage for a reason, Kakashi. I can predict your actions and I have far more than your safety to be concerned with. If not for Tenzo here,” she nodded to him. “I’d have a very different problem on my hands. Loyalty can be a dangerous thing, brat.”

Kakashi really did not have time for this.

"How do I trace him?"

Tsunade looked grim.

"Kakashi," she said quietly. "I'm not sure you can."

She shifted her gaze. Without speaking, Tenzo rose from his seat to stand directly beside her. He bared his sleeve obediently.

“What are you doing?” Kakashi righted to watch as she placed her fingertips on the bared flesh of Tenzo’s forearm, closing her eyes as if searching. The soft green glow of exploratory chakra thrummed through Tenzo’s flesh as he looked impassively on. Tsunade spoke again to Tenzo.

“Awaken your roots, Tenzo-kun,” she ordered. “Ask them what they know.”

Tenzo closed his very large and almond shaped eyes, his body going very still. The usual flesh of his arms began to seal and harden, the wood chakra overtaking his body. Tsunade’s grip on his arm did not waver, holding on until at last the light faded.

“I’ve found it.”

From her pocket, she removed a tiny scalpel. Flicking it over the bark of Tenzo’s skin, just beneath his eye, she sliced a small portion away and sealed it in a glass tube.

Kakashi grimaced. “You’re hurting him.”

“No sempai.” Tenzo said calmly. “The Lady requires this. It is necessary to locate Iruka san.”

The other jounin was, for the first time in a long time, without much protest.

“Tenzo’s roots tasted Iruka’s blood the night he was taken. His cells can store genetic information indefinitely as it shares telepathic patterns with all botanical life. The link of Iruka’s blood can act as a receptor once I enhance its signal. Tenzo has served you elegantly, Captain. You ought to commend him.”

Kakashi threw a look at Tenzo who had the full on audacity to smirk back.

The copy nin found the energy to shrug. "Then what are we waiting for?"

Tsunade smiled. "Your team will leave in an hour."

"Eh, team?"

"You know what they say," her smile broadened. "It takes a village."

 

tbc


	6. The Find

The sunlight's glow was melting the snow at Kakashi's feet into slush.

It had been frozen when he'd first arrived before dawn, the day gradually warming as mid-morning approached and the hour he'd been told to arrive was still far off. He briefly wondered what Team 7 would think of him being several hours early for once.

The place the Hokage instructed Kakashi to meet his new team wasn't a commonly known way to get out of the village. The Hidden had even a few more Hiddens that were harder to find than others. Mostly because unless the Hokage personally invoked a certain location's existence, those places didn't exist at all. Unknown to most civilians of the village the Leaf had been created to be a labyrinth far beyond its chaotic jumble of alleyways and sewers. There were miles of wandering tunnels that reached even beyond the cliffs and heavily warded forests designed to make trespassers hopelessly lost. Within that there were quite a few mazes made in more trapped mazes and Kakashi thought he might know them all. He also knew a dozen of the elders would never know he'd made a few himself. But he was prepared for wherever they would send him.

Like this strange patch of warped scarlet hued woods that the Hokage had created out of thin air.

Even in daylight Kakashi's surroundings looked like something in a half dreamed red blur that was a horrible idea turned real. The Lady certainly had a great like for show. He looked around at the carefully crafted scenery while rubbing at an aching shoulder. She really shouldn't have bothered. The forest of death would have been just fine if she wanted all this secrecy. Because at the end of it all, he did not care about any need to be covert. He only wanted to get it going.

Someone arrived.

"Hello, Anko."

It was windy in this trans-fix soaked twilight of Tsunade's causing her cloak to whip wildly around her.

"You're on the team?" Kakashi was mildly surprised.

"Couldn't pay me."

He twisted his hitai-ate that she misplaced at the side of his head by her neatly sliced smack. It was often said among the ranks that the kunoichi's attempts at affection usually tended to hurt.

She was giving him a considering look. "I have something for you."

"Really."

"You may need it," she said tossing him a small old flaking scroll, pieces rolling off and fluttering. "Lasts a while."

Kakashi studied it while slowly turning it over in his hands.

Anko snorted. "You don't trust me?"

"Some of the time."

"You are welcome."

Palming the small weapon, Kakashi nodded back with a tired shame. He detested sympathy. It was loathsome that now so much of it was being directed towards him from all of his comrades. Now even Anko. To his relief she started fading away thankfully looking done and bored.

"Where is Yamato?" he had trouble raising his voice but he needed what he needed. "Tenzo should -"

"He'll be here." Anko answered while she slowly turned into smoke. "Such a worrier." And she flickered gone.

The churning red forest Tsunade made was empty again.

A sack that shouldn't felt bothersome lay heavy on his back.

Sliding down the side of a rippling purple tree, Kakashi used the bulk of the pack to lean on as his gaze lingered at the growing morning Konoha sky. The sky, even in Tsunade's jutsu, was there. Reaching for his pouch, there wasn't any book. He had to admit, and he'd never tell anyone, most of all not Master Jiraiya, that there could be never any real peace with or without a broken binding in his hand.

Then his mind, quite suddenly, gave him the school teacher.

Kakashi's gloved hands gripped his hair and he groaned, his head between his knees.

Jiraiya knew how to stifle Kakashi's mind when it sometimes erupted. Not many knew that. Jiraiya knew words in books could be like some warm broken in quilt that this child jounin named Kakashi never felt or knew existed. After a while, what the pages told him didn't matter so much. It was his sensei. Obito. Rin. There was even The Sannin. There was not a long list of people Kakashi looked to. So he kept to his missions. Keeping secrets from lands of faded sunset painted dunes, foggy swatches swarmed in ragged hills, and etched rotting boats that sailed through boiling storms. Kakashi never liked any of those places. He did enjoy moments in them. Like anywhere else. He liked moments very much. But when the sun broke through foreign mottled clouds it always brought him back to the bright green trees and Iruka's gentle smile.

His eyes snapped open.

Kakashi had a mission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he blinked he knew he was no longer at the assigned meeting spot in the red forest.

Long snowy branched trees drooped over a noisy brook that flowed from the near by snow capped hills. Frigid water lazed over rocks and flowed through long strands of green moss.

Tsunade seemed to have been busy putting her team together elsewhere.

Kakashi saw he was right outside the towering village gates. Cracked and broken as always. The ground he was grinding under his boots was what he knew.  With a sudden burst of understanding, it came to him that he had been the only one sent into the Hokage's jutsu. It hadn't been a meeting place at all, it had been a controlled holding cell so he didn't find Tenzo and take off on his own without clearance. He felt incredibly stupid.  And incredibly offended.

Then someone else was there.

'Oh, perfect." Kakashi's grey heavy gaze was directed towards the newcomer. "You?"

He side stepped slightly to avoid several senbon which were suddenly embedded - _thud thud thud_ \- in the ground fiercely, and very precisely beside his foot. Tossing projectiles while his back was half way turned wasn't very sportsman like. But this special jounin tended to enjoy entertaining himself like that.

"Hiya, Kakashi." The self-amused voice came annoyingly not energetic.

Kakashi always thought Genma's versions of a greeting were always a little over the top. Why the man didn't just abruptly materialize to make a baby genin wet themselves for fun like a normal elite, he was never quite sure. Without turning, he plucked senbon out of the frozen grassy dirt and returned them to the sender back over his shoulder. It was pleasant to hear a very satisfying yelp when at least one or two met its mark. Kakashi had been hoping for six.

"I see you are being very um, nonchalant but you might...," Genma said. "... want to work on a little more of the _chalant_."

Kakashi turned to look at him and worked out painfully what he should say.

"Use your words." Genma suggested.

He blinked and tried to stare hard with one flat eye.

"Forget about the big ones." Genma suggested further. He sounded completely unnervous and it made Kakashi want to slowly choke him. He watched the other jounin's face and wondered how it would be if he got angry at what he saw. He didn't get angry often. This wasn't the time. Someone was missing....

Suddenly, with a gasp, he sunk down to one knee, and Genma went right down with him holding him in place.

"Hey--"

"Don't." Kakashi was looking hard at the ground, his fist balling, sparking and sizzling. "Just--"

"Look-"

"I wasn't expecting to see you here," Kakashi tried to pull away from the grip to keep watching for the Hokage. "So, you are on the... team."

Genma slowly stood up, releasing Kakashi carefully as he did. "I volunteered," he yanked a few senbon out of his shoulder with a slight wince.

"Why?" Kakashi honestly asked.

"Why???"

"It's... I can do this if.."

"Use your adjectives and maybe some more verbs." Genma rubbed at his senbon wounds. "Gimme me a sort of break here."

"This will be..." Kakashi's mind went a horrible stutter white with Tenzo bleeding out, Iruka staring into nothing. "Genma it's not--"

"Let's put it this way," Genma shook his head at the ground, fists clenched. "You're not the only one with a thing for teachers and trees," he shrugged. "And I hug trees. It helps the land."

Kakashi visible eye narrowed and white chakra sparked.

"Hey relax," the other man backed up half a step with his hands raised. "Bad joke. I just mean they are my friends. Isn't this what friends do?"

Kakashi simmered his energy down suddenly feeling like he had started an idiotic confrontation on a playground. "We need to focus," he breathed, forefinger and thumb working on his forehead. "It will be... difficult."

The last of what was left of Genma's smile faded into grim seriousness. It appeared as if he was going to say something inspiring, or worse, comforting, but Kakashi was thankfully saved by the sudden appearance of another of their party.

"Sorry I'm late. Am I late?"

"No Tenzo." Kakashi assured him. Tenzo was many things and easily flustered with punctuality was one of them.

"Tenzo?" Genma repeated.

"I meant Yamato." Kakashi corrected himself.

"Oh.. eh. Right."

Ignoring Tenzo's ready and too complacent stare, Kakashi wondered who the third team member would be. He had listed, relisted and guessed at the roster Tsunade would have pulled together and the choices were not limitless. He had doubts however. The Hokage tended to be very unpredictable at times.

"No way," Genma groaned. "Not HIM."

Turning, Kakashi saw no other than a disheveled Shikamaru trudging up the path with his hands shoved down deep into his pockets. Appearing as thrilled as usual as if the very act of being alive was the worst thing that had happened to him this morning.

"But he's just a kid." Genma hissed.

Shikamaru was nodding and yawning at the same time. "Then it's decided. This mission of yours will probably keep me up way past my bedtime anyway."

"Yeah," Genma readily agreed. "Why not his old man? Someone with field experience!"

"That's what I said," Shikamaru frowned. "Too bad for me he's on assignment."

"How about any adult whatsoever?" Genma was almost pleading. "I don't wanna babysit and fight at the same time!"

"I understand completely," Shikamaru said. "I'll just head back on home and--"

"STAY." someone ordered.

They all swung around to see Lady Tsunade standing above and behind them on the rise of a hill, the aftermath of blood red roil behind her passage. She was a bit startling at the best and worst of times, but her eyes glinted like there was a sun blaring behind them. Kakashi tried to hide his flinch when that gaze swung and landed right on him with heat from an uncontrolled fire.

"He's Nara and we are dealing with some sort of shadow. He could prove more than useful to you at your destination."

"About that My Lady," Tenzo tentatively asked. "Where is it exactly that we are going?"

Kakashi thanked whoever was listening that Tenzo always had the sense to stay in tune.

Tsunade gave a very worryingly dismissive shrug. "Honestly gentlemen, I have no idea."

They collectively looked down in alarm when a harsh blue glowing line she'd carved started to curve into a range of diminishing fiery circles under their feet and began to slowly spin. So much for a warning. It was time to go.

"Is this gonna hurt?" Shikamaru asked. "This is gonna hurt isn't it."

"I'm sure it won't be... pleasant." Her voice faded along with the shimmer of the Hidden Leaf.

And they were all suddenly swirling away and long gone.

 

*****

 

The first thing Kakashi knew for certain was that he was alive.

No one could possibly be in this much pain and be dead. Every nerve threaded through every muscle was singing, as if they had been pulled loose of his body like a strand of wool undoing a sweater, and then hastily sown back into place. The second thing he knew was that he could not move and this, while it did not make him panic, did cause some due concern.

After a few moments he could flex his fingers in the brittle long grass under his hands. Bleary eyes revealed the white wash of the sky above. Several more minutes went by and he could sit up. After what he had gauged to be close to half an hour he was able to haul himself up on unsteady feet. Looking around, he saw what he'd already assumed. He was alone. Either the others hadn't made it or they all had landed like falling stars randomly around the area. Well, he couldn't worry about that now.

He realized he was standing at the edge of a crumbling white stoned cliff. Far below there was a strip of narrow rocky beach that gave way to grey ocean that was just several shades darker then the soft blare of the solemn sky. The bleak but shrill cry of broad winged sea birds drifted up the cliff face with a strong brackish wind that stung his eye, mixing with the lulling sound of the crashing surf.

This was not exactly what Kakashi had been expecting. He wasn't exactly sure what he might have been, but it was along the terms of another shrine, a keep, or something fortified and made by the beast that Iruka had called the 'shadow'. His gaze was locked on the churning waters beyond the breakers, and something in his chest tightened. Is that why Iruka's blood had summoned them here? Was Iruka already gone, somewhere lost, body discarded after he was no longer any use.

"If you are here," Kakashi's murmur was eaten by the racking wind. "I will find you."

Studying the featureless grassy plateau he stood on he saw nothing of any interest. Detected nothing either. But considering how Tsunade had warned them about this thing's ability to crosswire those types of senses of chakra he wasn't very surprised. However, his instincts kept bringing his gaze down to the water below, the white foam sizzling on the sand as it rushed back and forth with the draw of the next wave. Getting down there would be no problem.

All he had to do was jump.

 

*****

 

Iruka lay curled on his side, his knees practically at his chest, his tightly bound arms numb between them.

"I don't think he likes us very much."

"No, I do not think he does Maneki."

"But Master does."

He was barely listening. It was hard anyway. The shadow's voice never stopped now. Iruka shifted his stiff limbs even closer as if to hone what he was really hearing. Feeling nearby.

All he could discern was a lone man. And for some reason, the man kept his blood red eye wide open.

 

tbc


	7. The Mottled Sky

Iruka was walking through an endless quiet forest.

Lush and green with a sweet wind that carried the sounds of people laughing, talking, arguing and singing. There were so many of them. So many people hidden deep amongst the towering trees that stood strong and silently like sentinels. He heard a low tuneless humming and realized the one humming out of tune was himself. The forest became hazy, leaves shimmering on the branches. The sounds of a village started to fade away. 

Piercing through it all were two distinct voices. They belonged to two men that didn't belong here in this peaceful place.

"You told me they wouldn't come looking, Ko. You said that to me."

"Well, they came." the other voice sounded annoyed.

The nervous and irritated sounds made the warm surrounding woods start to rip and drop apart piece by piece falling up into the clear blue above until Iruka was left shivering on the dank hard ground. He weakly shook his head from side to side trying to rid himself of the stifling black mask strapped over his face. Iruka did not know much anymore but it didn't take long to recognize this hell was real and that other place among the trees was the torture of some dream. That place didn't exist. His scratchy hum trailed off in a soft ragged sob with an even softer muzzled curse. He had never been any good at that. The cursing. At least the shadow was dormant, seeming to have fallen into the traitorous slumber along with him and had not yet awakened.

"You _said_ they wouldn't!"

"I know what I said, Maneki."

Iruka knew the two men had been gone for some time. He had no idea for how long but he knew enough that he'd stopped flinching away from curious hands running over his body and mutterings in a language he didn't understand.

"What if there are more of them!"

"Calm yourself. We will protect the reliquary from any others."

"At least we got lucky," the other said. "Wonder what happened to this one."

Something heavy was dropped on the cave floor.

Iruka couldn't see them, only hear their movements. The eye slits on the heavy mask allowed very little other than the glow of the candle light and now crackle of a fire. There was the smell of thick wood smoke, reminding him sickeningly of the oily fires he had lit at the shrine. Then came the scent of sizzling fish and the acrid aroma tea made of herbs he could not identify. The idea of food made his stomach lurch in the want and the revulsion of it, the tea just made him wonder if they would ever consider giving him any water. Water. He curled into himself even tighter more for warmth than anything. There had been a quiet man once that always wanted him to drink water. Why would anyone want him to do that he wasn't sure no one the shadow said no one no one. No one wanted him for anything. 

The ocean breathed its steady roar in a echo through the cavern walls.

Biting down on the stone and wood fixture pressing down on his tongue he turned his head into the sand, to avoid them hearing any desperate sound he might have made at the thought of easing his terrible thirst. His dry mouth ached and his restrained arms and shoulders were twitching with cramps from trying to struggle earlier under their prying hands.

The shadow stirred tempestuously further awake with Iruka's growing agitation. 

_No, please no, no-_ he was so tired. _please..._

Reprieve did not happen. Panting, he fought the savage blur of colors and light that flashed sharply and painfully making him shove his head back and forth into the sand. There was no stopping the onslaught of confusing images that he knew should somehow make sense. For a moment he would latch onto a thought before it was wretched away as quickly as it had come. There had been a field full of laughing children, a smiling blond boy with eyes at noon, a horrible brightly lit white room, and-

These dark eyed men had their hands on him again with their calm expectant words. But while they were speaking to Iruka but it wasn't him they were directing their attention to at all. 

"Master wants to commune again," Ko seemed resigned. "Every moment He is so much closer to the surface."

The shadow's stare burned through Iruka's eyes and listened to the servants intently.

"If He wants to play I would like to go first this time."

"What gives you that privilege, Maneki?"

"Fine. We can toss some dice for it?"

The shadow began to thrum wildly and Iruka's muscles stiffened, a wracking shudder running through him as the heavy feel of the thing slithered down over his chest and settled on his taunt stomach, stroking and moving his thighs apart. Iruka did groan then, rolling over onto his back and moaning in disgusted frustration as the shadow whispered soothing things that made tears stream from the corners of his eyes.

No. No. No. No-

It told him to keep forgetting. Forget what? How do you remember what you were supposed to have forgotten? Forget and forget until you are empty. Empty and ready to be filled. There is almost nothing left. Nothing at all. Iruka ground at the bit in his mouth until he thought the bones of his jaw would crack, growling and thrashing at the dual grips of the human hands that lent power to the even stronger grip twisting inside of him. Forget until you are empty.

_Iruka... My name is Iruka. My name is-is_

It surged and swelled, obliterating his litany like thunder clouds smothering an already obscure sky. It told him he'd soon not that know that name either. Just like all the rest all the names and faces and places... Iruka's head jerked aside as they handled him when a hazy image of a man with pale hair came. A long scar that ran neatly down over a closed eye. He grasped at the memory but it vanished as he reached. 

When you are empty then your body will be mine for the taking because you will be gone. Missing from this wonderful shell, the reliquary, my reliquary. This body will be my body, and I will walk under the sun and moon again. Iruka's heaving chest hitched at the eager rush of words, the shadow gasping slightly when a human hand came to rest on his hip to ease his pants down, Iruka moaning with the shadow as another hand pushed his sand encrusted shirt up to his neck to clutch him under his chin. The shadow and Iruka both softly sighed and arched their backs when someone lay a reverent kiss on the sealed mouth of the ink black mask.

_My name is Iruka... My name is..._

He was spiraling downwards into the shadow's keening pleasure. Cold humid air flowed over naked skin and two warm mouths traveled downwards. Molten wet between his legs and on his chest with hands splayed on his lower stomach and others pulling up under his knees. The Master's ecstasy was as stifling as the wood smoke, and Iruka inhaled it with staggered breaths like vapor from a pipe of smoldering opium. He was being buried deep under the black, dragged into its hunger for touch, its insatiable need to feel. There was only one thing Iruka saw before it took over the last of any of his rational thought but he didn't understand what it was.

Across the cave on the other side of the fire, besides their packs and few supplies, there was something else. He numbly recalled hearing the two men dropping something heavy when they had returned to the cave earlier. What they had brought had been covered by a blanket. But not covered completely.

He could make out one uniformed arm with a metal gloved hand laying limp in a mirror like pool of water.

 

*****

 

 

Kakashi had never had much appreciation for the sea.

Long ago he remembered Iruka expressing in an overblown drunken outrage about something close to the same thing. Due to some over indulgence with a few bottles of sake that particular evening, Kakashi had found the sentiment fairly amusing considering the teacher's namesake. It had been the first time he'd really laughed with him. Of course not as loudly as Iruka. But that easy laughter made Kakashi feel like he was allowed to join him even though Iruka now always complained he could barely hear it when he did.

Kakashi took in a deep breath and tilted his head back to look up at the sluggish passage of the dreary clouds.

He felt the closest to sane than he had for the first time in days. No longer stuck looking at a set of four walls with nothing but his fraying mind to dismantle him hour by hour. Minute by minute. Second to second. This is where he finally needed to be. Here he could focus. Here he could be finally put into use. His knuckles cracked as he made a fist inside another fist.

But no, he still didn't much care for the sea.

It wasn't as if it wasn't nice to look at. If he gave a damn. The truth was that he rarely really stopped to contemplate things like the quality of a view like he knew Iruka did. And if he really stopped to think about it, he didn't even ponder on why he didn't even do much pondering. 

He looked up and down the empty beach.

A cracked turtle shell, as wide and long as several horses was half buried on its side in the packed sand next to an even larger translucent splatter of a milky blue jellyfish, seashells caught in its membrane like pink shrapnel. He nudged a half rotted seagull at his boot, grimacing at its tangled wings.

His dislike was centered around a few things that he found to be of much more concern than how enchanting some sunrise on a flat horizon was supposed to be. One thing was the logistical nightmare any water based tactical maneuvering required, especially with the teams of Leaf nin that were proficient and much more effective with solid land based operations. Another thing was a lot more basic and something that Kakashi largely kept to himself.

The incredible stink of the place. 

He rubbed the back of his hand over his mask and resisted the urge to cough a little to somehow remove the briny reek that felt like it was stuck in the back of his throat. Having an extraordinary sense of smell did him no favors on a shoreline covered with one thousand and more dying or dead sorts of life mixing in the surf and tangled in the rocks. Not to mention the very much living things clinging to the edges of the countless tidal pools in shapes of shellfish and the scurry of crabs in the brown clumps of washed up sea grass. Kakashi also didn't like the unnerving knowledge that the vast expanse of water could hide anything better than any of the darkest of nights or the thickest of forests. 

With a bit of effort he attempted to extend his chakra again just for the hell of it.

While his chakra reserves remained thankfully intact, his senses were hindered just like they had been in the Leaf. Somehow this shadow thing had made it him unable to sense much the last time he had gotten close to Iruka and there hadn't been even a flicker of anyone for miles when he had woken up at the top of the cliff. Like he had done when Iruka had broken out of the T&I unit, he spread a delicate web of chakra on the off chance it would pick up on anything. If it wasn't working on other shinobi than maybe it would at least seek out any traps or seals that might be sitting in wait. Starting off heading south, he suddenly paused as he experienced an infinitesimal tug on his web.

His eye widened.

Very much to his surprise he had felt something. It wasn't very much. Barely anything. Like seeing a torch lit briefly on a twilight mountain side. There and gone and in an instant and missed if one wasn't looking precisely in its direction at the exact right moment. It had come from somewhere ahead. Picking up his pace, he stuck closer to the rocks and weaved quickly through the white boulders that the crumble of the towering cliffs left littered along its base.

Leaping on top of one of the largest in his path, he scanned the area and spotted what his chakra had detected. Forcing himself to stay where he was, he pushed out his senses and found only that small spark again and nothing else. Satisfied it wasn't a trap, he jumped down into the narrow crevice between the rocks next to the sprawl of a very comatose Shikamaru.

"Looks like you had a fun trip too."

Pressing finger tips to the boy's neck, he found a pulse. The Nara's skin was pale but warm, breath steady and even. Kakashi brushed the sugary coating of sand off Shikamaru's closed eyes and out of his slack mouth. He considered the situation. Although he himself hadn't made it through Tsunade's ride feeling all that fantastic, he knew very well how much more he could handle than most. With a kind of morbid pride, he was aware he could handle more than most any nin of any creed, nation or kind. It was hard to fathom what the journey may have done to this genin that probably wouldn't have been exactly left smiling even at a basic jounin level. 

Kakashi sighed. "Guess you're not waking up any time soon."

He thought briefly of Tenzo and Genma. Kakashi had little doubt or worry about Tenzo's ability to withstand the trip but Genma might be a completely different story. If Genma was laying around exposed somewhere on the beach like Shikamaru that could pose a problem. It suddenly occurred to him what else that could possibly mean and Kakashi glanced grimly out at the hectic toss of the waves. If Genma had ended up on land anyway. Pushing that thought out of his head, Kakashi gently picked the genin up and weighed his options.

"You got your wish," Kakashi mumbled to the limp kid in his arms. "You get to sleep in just like you wanted."

It didn't take long to find a suitable alcove nearby that he situated the genin as comfortably as he could, left an infused seal inscribed with what Kakashi knew so far, which wasn't all that much. He included a strong burst of chakra from his hand to Shikamaru's wrist and watched it flow rapidly through the lines up and down his body before it settled and faded into a glow on his face. It would help a little with with the pain when he woke up and maybe help him locate Kakashi later. Stepping back, he camouflaged the hiding place with what looked just like the pocked rock that surrounded it. 

Safe and sound. He hoped. Turning back the way he came, he forced his senses out in a net once more. He had gotten lucky with Shikamaru. And he knew better than anyone that lightening really could strike twice. 

Sometimes even more than thrice.

 

*****

 

It took Iruka some time to become aware that the heavy mask had been removed.

Mostly it was the ability to breathe easier that made him realize he wasn't simply dreaming again. He blinked dazedly in the wavering gloom and didn't have any strength to resist the hands even if this time they were pulling and tucking his clothing back into place instead of the opposite. He had come to slowly and dully saw that he had an unobstructed view of the cave's jagged ceiling, dome like and very high in its center only to slope off to the sides where the light did not reach. The air was brisk and almost frigid making him guess that it might be night somewhere beyond the damp dripping walls. They had placed him closer to the foul smelling fire. As warmth gradually returned he wondered how long they had used him this time. Not that it mattered. It was a small comfort he supposed that when they and the shadow took him over, he seemed to fade away completely. Iruka thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad if next time he didn't come back at all. It was what the Master wanted. They told him that. It told him that. He had stopped trying to deny in the small moments of lucidity that they could be nothing but right.

He twitched violently when cool hands were suddenly placed on his face.

It must have been days in the mask, the unfamiliar sensation of the touch on his exposed skin was startling and he heard himself making small sounds of protest. He coughed and gasped as they pulled the smooth stone piece from his mouth. Working his aching jaw, he waited dismally for whatever what was going to happen next.

"Drink."

One of the men was holding him up with a hand between his shoulders and tilting a yellowed ceramic bowl to his parched lips. Unprepared for it, most of it ran down his face as he coughed most of it out. After the man emptied it, Iruka tried to raise his bound arms to make him stop when he returned with another, tongue burning and stomach clenching painfully. The man didn't stop until two more bowls later and dropped Iruka ungently back onto the ground sputtering and choking. He wondered how long he'd been without any food and water. Their reliquary apparently didn't require as much as a normal human being. The shadow had been keeping him alive he knew and with a sick dread he wondered just how drastically his body and mind had been altered to make that possible. Without any warning he was hauled to his feet. If the two men hadn't been on either side of him he would have ended up back on the ground, the cave spun wildly and he felt the water he'd been forced rise to the back of his throat. As his knees buckled they propped him up and held him firmly under his arms until the dizziness passed.

"Master now requires subsistence." the older one informed him.

Before Iruka could ask what that meant, they yanked him forward past the fire until they were standing over the figure that lay unmoving under the blanket. Iruka tensed watchfully, his hair hanging in his eyes and his hands flexing in the wire. The servants seemed to be waiting for him to do something. Iruka looked down at the covered body in weary confusion.

"Wh-Who is this?"

"Not a who," the younger one grinned, his pitch eyes glistening in the meager light. "A what."

"A what." Iruka repeated dumbly, his voice little more than a rasp.

"Yes. This is no longer a who," he answered. "It will serve as subsistence. You've done it before. You took our three brothers in the Hidden Leaf prison."

Iruka was shaking his head and trying to back away. "I have no idea what you are talking about-"

"Ko, could you do the honors?"

The other man knelt down and flipped the blanket back. Iruka blinked down at the sight of a young man dressed like he was. The uniform was slightly different but had the same insignia on the sleeve. Iruka warily studied him further and noticed long wicked needle shaped weapons scattered all over the ground, spilled from a pouch that had been tossed aside next to the prone body. 

"Is-Is he dead?"

"No, no," the man laughed. "He's no good if he's dead."

Iruka looked to him not understanding.

"Go ahead."

"Go ahead and what?"

"Take him."

Iruka stared still not comprehending.

"His chakra," the elder of the two kneeling beside the body began patiently explaining. "It was pure chance he showed up. And already in this state. We didn't have to engage."

"It's true, no fight at all. Found him like that." the man next to Iruka smiled. "And he's an elite!"

Iruka stumbled back away and hit the cave wall.

"We thought we'd have to give up some of OUR reserves for Master's return and honestly even as bottomless as our chakra is that sort of drain would still sting a little. I don't like pain."

The other nodded solemnly. "Maneki and I were chosen to survive and to serve the Master when He again walks."

"It's because we're the strongest of our entire clan," Maneki sounded extremely proud. "It's in our blood."

Iruka swayed on his feet trying to wrap his mind around what they were telling him and what they expected him to do. And what the shadow would assuredly force him to if he didn't volunteer to commit the act himself. But what they were asking would surely lead to this person's death or something even worse.

"Oh yeah!" the one beside him let out another laugh, although this time it sounded apologetic. "You'll probably need your hands right?"

With a downwards slice of a kunai his arms were suddenly released and he choked on a harsh cry of blinding pain. Falling to a knee, he willed himself not to completely collapse as blood coursed in a rush into muscles that had been constrained for who knew how long. Instead he tipped forward breathlessly, one shaking hand bracing himself on the wet stones, the other landing on the shoulder of- 

Once his fingers made contact with the unconscious body under him a single word flashed like a flare through the midnight in his head. Iruka's heart skipped in his chest and he froze. Trembling fingers went to the oddly serene face, damp hair clinging to sun dark cheeks and forehead.  
It had just been one single word.

"G-Genma." Iruka whispered it to himself in disbelief. A small sliver of terrible hope rose and he braced himself afraid but defiant of what the shadow would do to the shining thread. "I know him. I _know_ him."

The two black eyed men exchanged a worried look and shifted uncertainly.

Iruka swung back in rage and frustration as he tried to hold on to that name, his body seizing in agony when the shadow unfurled inside every strand of thought his mind possessed. It neatly slashed his heresy in another brutal lull to start to reinforce his submission. But that name. The name was.... He kept his eyes closed trying to hold onto it. This man had a name. There was a name. Iruka had just had it... thought he might have even said it out loud.

"He really should get started, right Ko?" the young man had started to fret, his jovial manner gone as the air around them boiled with their Master's discontent. "This Leaf elite has more chakra than a few dozen temples combined and I really think this could take all night. Maybe even a few tomorrow nights."

"You are right."

"I am?"

"For once, yes."

Iruka sat up and then immediately fell back to a sit, his hands behind him, fingers clutching and grabbing into the gritty sand. He couldn't stop his mind racing to search for what he had just lost, there had been something, it had been there, it was right there and it was something important. He started when a slender hand he unfortunately did know came under his chin, two fingers tipping his face up. Iruka didn't know why but he hated that hand and the person that never smiled that came with it. Eyes like holes, a thumb pressed so hard it bruised his lower lip as he met Iruka's steady but sad gaze. He was so tired.

"Now you see..."

"Tell 'em Ko!" the younger man behind him urged. "Master did not like that."

"Yes, yes, I know I heard Him," Ko studied Iruka's face. "And if I could only _hear_ Him, I really can not begin to conceive what he _offered_ to you."

Iruka looked up into the glittering onyx eyes and only felt exhaustion and despair. He didn't have anymore. How much more could he give to this fight? When the servant released his face, he sagged to a fall on his side and felt the numbing cold seep of sea water soak into his already damp clothes, the salt burning and stinging into the shallow wire cuts all up and down his body. He thought about the pale haired man with the soft kind voice. Iruka wondered if he would dream about him one more time before he was gone.

"Would you like to hear a secret?" 

The servant named Ko crouched over him and was prepared to confide in a way to make Iruka think that the Master and his followers were a truth after all. One in the same. Forget. Forget everything. Empty. You will become empty. Ko whispered right into his ear.

"The secret is that I am envious of you."

"H-ha- ha.."

Iruka's doubled over into a bitter soundless but weak laugh. For some reason it made him think of someone with a lopsided smile from a scar that went down his eye and tangled grey hair. But it was impossible. No one else existed. Dreams were made to torture him into hope so it could be taken away. Forget. Forget dreams of a forest. Forget peace. This man you imagined, the shadow said, your dreams are wonderful and I would like them. They will all be finished soon. I'll keep them all in a box for Myself. I will seal them away just as they sealed my clan's secrets. Just as others sealed me. I will seal you away.

"Then--Then do it-"

Address me. 

Iruka knew perfectly well that the pale haired man with the heavy eyes wasn't real. Another figment the shadow created. But it was nice in fleeting seconds. Sometimes. He could almost remember how it felt late at night when a winter storm set in, the wind wailing outside and they were together. It was as if the whispers the pale man spoke were as warm as the trees stood tall. He made Iruka smile when he didn't want to. The shadow was clever, the shadow was cruel, it made him feel more than physical pain. The shadow was right. He was weak. He was weak. He had no one. Forget. Forget.

Address me.

"End this."

The servants were back.

Iruka felt his loose hair gathered at the base of his his neck and yanked up hard so he was forced up into a kneel in front of some uniformed man laying on the ground. Where had he come from? The nin looked ill, wounded, half covered in a blanket. His shirt had been cut down the middle down to his waist.

"So now reliquary," Ko took Iruka's hand and placed it on the man's bared chest. "Let's get to work."

"No-"

"Give it a moment... ah, there."

Iruka saw his placed hand pulse with a brilliant blue light and the body under him shook for a moment before it stilled again. It might have been hours, it might have been probably only seconds, when the nauseating stream of steady energy that wasn't his made him yank his chakra scorched hand away. Iruka was surprised to see the man laying under him was now half awake. The nin had turned his head and managed to focus on him. Iruka was even more bewildered when the man attempted a pained but a strangely triumphant smile. It was a nice smile.

"F-Found you first."

One of the servants took Iruka's limp hand back up and replaced it higher on the chest, closer over the heart. Iruka was causing pain. He had to stop he had to stop he had to stop all he had to do was stop. He had to listen to the shadow. It told him everything it would do when it returned to walk under the sun and the moon. Iruka listened like he listened to his own heartbeat. Embedded, constant, unstoppable.

They all looked down blankly when the nin with a uniform that looked like the one he wore was trying very hard to talk.

"It-It's okay, sensei..." the man stammered, his eyes slipping as the light pulsed brighter and he panted in slow even breaths when the chakra started to be drawn out needlessly slow. The act like a sword sawing in and out of a wound. "It's going to be... to be..."

The shadow was making him hurt this man on purpose. Iruka had defied Him and He liked to punish. But this man in the uniform and senbon had a name. Iruka knew he had a name. The man had gone unconscious again when Iruka had his attention taken away with the shadows rambling murmurs. He screamed and fought in the battlefield of his mind. He never won. So he thought he'd finish what this nin might have been trying to tell someone.

"...it's going to be okay." Iruka told him quietly, the hand not forced on his chakra points pulled the nin's shirt closed from the frost that was forming on his wet skin. Sending the chakra he had stolen straight back to heat his ice temperature and healing the bruises the servants had left after they found him unable to defend himself. "Your mission reports are horrible."

"Huh?"

"You have to listen while I can still- while I can still-"

"Sensei.."

"I don't know... I don't know who you are."

Iruka did not know him or where he came from but he would not let him die here. Not like this. It was time now. He saw the array of weapons they'd left in this nin's possession and not really rendering their recent captive helpless. The shadow was watchful but now sometimes lazy in anticipation. He had to find the right moment. 

"I will make this okay."

If there were no reliquary, no one was walking anywhere.

Sun or moon. This will end like an eclipse.

Iruka picked up a fist full of the nearest senbon from the watery ground at his knees, moved them over his heart....  
... and pushed.

tbc


	8. IN the Middle of Two Chapters Middle- A very very far back Flashback. I can explain.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Iruka got hurt on Kakashi's watch. (Iruka's Ordeal)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would be way before Evanesece. Back when Iruka was getting his ass kicked left and right cuz he's a Kitten!Ninja,
> 
> And, this was sort of the only way I know to communicate to youse whilse I am working on this story. A03 is all about fic, not updates/messages that I know of. So I wrote of a sort quickie (like a typed it out in less than half an hour) to post and to talk to you who are reading. I was always annoyed that in "Oruka's Odeal" he doesn't seem to remember Kakashi even tho that was the mission that sent the Kitten!ninja off to academic land. I call it off to lazy writing or bad subtitles, I have no idea. SO here is my little idea I would like to expound upon one day AND let you know I am still here writing. <3 I have been lagging but RL is kicking all of my ass. I'll will get to comments soon.

Kakashi flashed through the burning trees, his blood spattering in a messy erratic trail behind him.

The team was scattered. He hoped Tenzo would smell it-- the blood. He had plenty of wounds but he wanted to go big. So he sliced himself up a bit more so he could be traced. Hopefully he wouldn't bleed out before the nin could rally.

He was 19 today. Casting off from the branches he'd been navigating he opened his arms to spiral into the damp deep churning rainy forest. His boots slammed into a near lake of mud, blacken trees groaning and crashing into the mire on every side of him. Rolling sharp onto his feet to barrel straight through streams of boiling flames that lit up the dark and exploded on every side of him. He had to grin. Kakashi wasn't even near dead yet.

"Come on..." he urged under his breath. "This way."

Over there. A drop down a cliff pouring mud down with the deluge. What are you gonna do? Hope for a moment of divine intervention or jump? Kakashi didn't have a lot of time for faith.

After some tense blind mid air he was suddenly sliding down on his side through the rocky dirt rolling onto the thigh less injured, he looked around for the forty nin the Leaf should be sending to keep the body count down. All he could hear was the enemy on his ragged tail. All he could hope for now was to distract them away from his team that got caught in the ambush. Jagged exposed root in the hillside ripped through the top of his thigh as he slide down farther down into the gutted mountain side. He stifled all that he wanted to cry out, biting down on his arm and the edge of a bandage to roll out as he started to slow down. He groaned as he slid to a stop half submerged in a large puddle of muddy water. Breathing in and out, he carefully rolled out of the river of sludge and crouched listening beyond the roar of the mudslide. 30 seconds. Kakashi took another 10 seconds to apply the damp bandages and used what healing his chakra allowed. It wasn't much.

He stumbled through the dripping forest, shaking sooty rain water out of his eyes.

Kakashi knew most of his team had headed this way and fallen while had he lagged behind to provide cover. He'd fought to maintain the withered string of their connection to locate any survivors. To find the chunin he had been assigned to protect.

Iruka Umino.

When Kakashi finally saw him he barely recognized the bright green chakra, now dulled, fading with all the others.

Iruka was tangled almost up side down in jagged ivy, the thorns spiraling dark green with vicious hooks holding up his body. The blast had throw his team and the too soft eyed nin into the brambles with the force of scorching fire. Sickening black smoke rose off the sizzled vines and off the chunin's uniform and skin. With a quick check, it was clear that the chunin had a serious head injury.  


There was a brief moment of vertigo as another tunnel of fire style hissed in a deafening rush through the towering trees. Igniting with a sweep of orange sparks through the charred ashes. The terrible heat and the burning gush of glittering embers in the air made Kakashi dizzy and sick.

He attempted to focus.

Oh yeah, it was his birthday. He wiped blood from his mouth and whipped it behind behind him.

Kakashi only knew he was 19 because the Hokage had told him while handing over this mission. The Sandaime told him to watch over this chunin. Iruka.  
Said chunin weakly turned his head, wrists bleeding through this black gloves from the barbs of the plants. Choking on the acrid smoke that was burning his watering brown eyes he blinked hard at Kakashi, chest heaving and becoming more shallow with each inhale. Kakashi hissed when the chunin's limbs began to twitch and make the gnashes tear and deepen. 

"Stop," he ordered.

Iruka stopped his feeble struggles and his eyes seemed to clear and look up at him. 

"A-Am I gone?" 

"Stay still." A dripping Kunai carefully angled, he studied the terrible of tangle of thorns.

Then something happened that confused the elite jounin. Glancing up, he saw the chunin giving him a very faint smile. Barely a twitch of his lips on his pale face streaked red.

Kakashi didn't know why but he smiled slowly back under his mask, his hand steady on the back of Iruka's neck and another under his trembling shoulders. "We are going home now."  


It was as barely a rasp, but the jounin heard it. "If-If you say so." The smile faded and Iruka's eyes flickered.

Kakashi had him almost completely free of the twisting crush of branches. Breathing a sigh of relief, there came the faint sounds of the support teams quietly brushing through the smoke above and below. He turned his face up to the gentle flutter of pale green smoldering leaves that rained down with the ANBU's deadly passage. 

Looking down at Iruka Umino, he saw his chest still rising and falling, his eyes now closed. 

_No one was dying here today._

(soory fo4r aniy typost)


	9. They Come and They are Angry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while. Life happens.

Tenzo had awoken with a start and with a painful sharp inhale of bitter water.

He knew immediately that he was drowning.

It was frigid and burned his mouth like fire as it gushed down his throat. Blinking his eyes, he quickly realized he was suspended in a bone crushing and freezing dark. Momentarily panicked, he choked in another breath letting in another burning flood fill his lungs. The agony rushed through him like a lattice of ice that spread to very vein. Confusion lasted only a few moments until he knew for certain the Lady's transportation jutsu had apparently worked. He also knew that some time had passed.

_How long... have I been here?_

Water. He was in salt water.

As soon as he came to that realization his bleary vision was suddenly even more unfocused, a familiar feeling making his numb skin prickle. The feeling of knowing when a strike was going to meet its mark. A strike he would not be able to avoid. Water ate his sharp cry as a hot searing pain slammed behind his closed eyes. Tenzo felt rather than heard himself groan as he was slammed with an onslaught of weakness that rippled sick through his mind. The water made it easy for him to curl into a ball and clutch his head until the pain fitfully ebbed. Tenzo's moan traveled through his body, it had lessened but it wasn't good. After the agonizing, and he would add if to no one but himself, haphazard transportation jutsu of the Lady, it was hard to maintain equilibrium at the bottom of which he assumed was an ocean. Tenzo let that knowledge sink in for a moment as he uncurled out of his ball. Trying to shift his shaking limbs, he attempted to balance himself against the motion delay and movements made slow by the water. The element held him floating just over the bottom that he tentatively grazed with his fingertips. Sand like silk and sharp bits of broken seashells shifted through his hands.

Yes. An ocean.

As he righted himself, he decided which was was up and which was down. He took a deep gush of water and realized he wasn't drowning anymore. Far above in the murky green swirl a glint of sky could be seen flashing dully on the underside sheen of slowly undulating waves. Tenzo brightened if only a little. If he could see the surface that meant he couldn't be very far from shore. His chakra was so depleted merely by having to keep him alive for who knew how long that he couldn't find the simple strength to even break the surface. The Lady had warned before their departure that she had no idea where the team were headed in pursuit of the Shadow. This however was not exactly what he had even come close to speculating. Tenzo also wasn't sure what that meant for the rest of the members of the team who did not quite take to water like he did. With more than a twinge of worry, he extended his senses like he would a winding tangle of ivy and sensed at least which direction, if not distance, lay any air. It could be far. With a relieved sigh made of freezing water, he supposed it was a good thing that it was incredibly difficult for him to drown. But that came with a price. Even as he began struggling towards the shore he was very aware this kind of respite could not be kept up forever. With some more than difficultly, Tenzo tried to assume some sort of stand by using some wood style to anchor himself in the shifting sand. Better not to drift aimlessly with the lethargic but powerful currents that pushed and pulled relentlessly. His arms blindly lashed out at binding swatches of seaweed he attempted to make a path through the frigid darkness. Having never had traversed along an ocean floor and he had to admit he did not care for it. He didn't succumb to this kind of annoyance often but stumbling along the pitch black sea's gritty bottom didn't bring him any positive frames of thought.

 

Iruka heard the fall of metal clinking against rock. The sound made him freeze for he had not expected to be able to hear anything at all. Disappointment quickly replaced confusion. This was not what he had planned but then again, his plans and Master's plans ran two very different courses. Thin needles of metal were being drawn out of the skin of his chest. One by one and dropped onto the cave floor.

"He really thought he could die?" A someone snorted in disbelief.

"He is the reliquary." Practical. Bored.

"But does he know that?"

"Shut up, Maneki."

 

 

When Tenzo finally emerged from the surf, lurching and coughing like some sort of fable monster, he took some time to kneel down. He let the crash of waves pummel him as he threw up pure sea. Good thing water liked him enough for the gagging to end sooner rather than later.

He had to concentrate. Kakashi had always told him that. Focus, no matter how difficult or how distant that place may be.

His former captain was usually right. Once he could stagger up to one knee, Tenzo raised his head unsteadily and took in the windy stretch of a winter beach. He sensed nothing but that was to be expected considering his pre mission report. This Shadow didn't like to be found. Flexing his hands he assessed the rest of his body. Good to go.

Stepping beyond the pull and shove of the waves he crouched to spread his fingers into the sand.

"Tell me."

Water liked him and the Earth, at least, knew when to tolerate his commands. There were a few moments when his thoughts ebbed from honed to grasping. He'd been told many times not to worry. Being told and what he experienced were so often many different things. Tenzo stepped forward and saw before he felt he was going to collapse.

Without thinking, he felt himself lose it and was immediately met by the scooping bend of soft branches lurching out of the sand to reach up and stop his awkward fall. Tenzo breathed out in weak frustration as his Woodstyle rushed back into him, rushing back like a roaring waterfall squeezed into his flesh, his every cell, and slamming him breathless on his back. Blinking up with large almond eyes at the sky, he decided he might not have fared as well as he thought from the ocean hike. But he tried very hard to not let his mind wander. 

Tenzo's dark eyes blinked hard again.

Something was there, like a small brief touch on the wrist, making him jerk back in reflex. There it suddenly was. Tenzo tilted his head, the corner of his mouth up in a half smile listening to a whine of wind gusting over the water.

"Sempai..."

The true nature of his captain's chakra was one that he, if any, knew. There was no mistake. It settled like burning coal in his hands.  
"On my way."

Ignoring the groan through his arms and legs, Tenzo painfully stood up and started walking slowly in the direction of the call. The mission was far from over but he had gotten past the first of it all. Just keep not dying. If he could sense Kakashi than finding his team was next. Shiramuru. Genma. That meant the teacher too.

 

 

Iruka had been looking at the man he might have known for a long time.

Slowly, Iruka rolled over and placed his bare hand on the gloved one laying next to his in the water. The flesh was cold. Iruka felt momentary panic for the man laying beside him, way above his own.

"Sensei..." the man uttered softly. "I don't go down that easy."

Iruka breathed in and looked at the drawn face.

"And from the looks of it," the man maybe named Genma barely chuckled. "Neither do you."

Iruka moved his hand and rubbed it hard over where he'd stabbed the senbon into his own body. Just torn fabric and a dull horrible burn. Iruka’s face crumbled in despair. There truly was no way out for him. Iruka willed himself to focus on something else, like the injured man sprawled next to him. Something about the eyes produced a brief flicker of recognition in his mind. This person was someone from the past, a someone he had known.

"Hey."

The Genma's weak voice forced him to look harder.

"It's not over, Iruka."

"How do you know?" Iruka was still trying hard with a shaking hand to feel that face.

"Because I'm still breathing." The grin ended with a cough.

Iruka smiled a bit at that.

The man continued. "And?"

Iruka carefully sat up to hold this man's head in the fold of his aching arm. "And what?"

"There's a Kakashi coming."

Iruka stilled. "What is ... what is that?"

The man looked thoughtfully behind Iruka and to the two blacked eyed sentries standing watchfully over them. Iruka half imagined the pained face of Genma seemed to relax. Looked even sadistically glad when he whispered the word.

"Doom."

tbc


	10. The The of The

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Jink.

Kakashi found it.

Gigantic and taking up much of the sprawling alcove, a long dead creature's stark cracked skeleton sat in a sag, its bones reaching up into the sky curving half buried into the towering white dunes. It dully reminded him of some of the far northern shrines designed on purpose to resemble such colossal decay. Those were mostly vague memories when the world would become a blur to him; He had been engineered in one way or another to focus on his missions. When his body became overtaxed, it checked off one after another any superficial functions he could spare until it maneuvered him to a quiet safe spot where he might recharge. Kakashi wasn’t usually aware enough to observe his own body seeking shelter. He was happy enough to rely on the pure luck of having the Hatake legacy to keep him alive. Thoughts focused sharply onto the nin whom hadn't inherited nine hundred lives by simple genetic lottery.

Kakashi allowed the thunderous sound of the crashing waves to fade. He let himself be drawn into a memory his mind hadn't shut away as less than useful.

It was a quiet memory. Pen strokes and pages of yellowed books turning. The heady smell of charcoal burning in the grate.

__

Iruka had his hands tangling in the hair on the base of his neck. Five books opened to many chapters all spread out on the large table they usually ate at. Instead of flustered he looked sort of vaguely irritated, flipping to the next tab, and pointing hard at underlined words."See? It says it here again."

"Fascinating." Automatic response. What else could be said?

Iruka had the audacity to reach around on his back to find another heavy tome.

Nuzzled under, Kakashi had his chin and the warmth of Iruka's neck

"K-Kakashi I have a question..." 

"I'd start at requests right now, demands, nothing written please..."

"Kakashi," the hands in the jounin's hair started to yank rather than stroke. 

Iruka's head fell back when he pushed in and up onto his lap, rubbing them both in the same fist, gently shoving his tongue.

This could be easily shut down. Iruka did it all the time. Kakashi's knee and thigh pushed between Iruka's legs and placed him conveniently on the sanctified desk of the Leaf Academy Sensei. One hand was under Iruka's hip another holding a stilled chin so he could deeply kiss that mouth. Iruka would never admit that his resistance was far too flimsy when Kakashi really wanted his way. Like festival confections, it dissolved instantly under onslaught. Considering Umino did not do so for anyone else, Kakashi fell even more for those brown wondering eyes.

Iruka would never admit it. Kakashi pushed his tongue hard into the gasping man under him.

Kakashi was well versed in various religions, beliefs, and ethics in many wanderings climes. Fairy tales and novels brimming with loyal chastity. He thought most of it was horse feathers. But this pliant body crushed against him was different. This was real.

The roar of the sea came swiftly back as he opened his eyes, blinking into the wind.

Kakashi knew better by now than to trust nothing but primal instincts. But this enemy was not anything he’d encountered and the years told him this shadow was merely waiting biding its time. Only predators had such patience but this chakra signature spoke otherwise.  


It was hiding.

This shadow.

This thing that took Iruka away.

Even more strangely it appeared to be on the run. Traps and lures could come in many forms but he knew fear when he met it. Nothing had drawn him here but the Lady's power and his own senses. His presence was less than anticipated. It wasn't even considered. The jounin sank his fingers into fists in the damp sand.

He liked that. A lot.

Kakashi granted himself time to understand this new landscape. He’d felt something unsettling a few moments ago, an inclination that might have meant something. Felt suspiciously like the subtle frenzy of Tenzo. But he dismissed it. He could sense nothing else.

If Iruka were dead, then it was done.

No.  
No.  
No. No. No. No.

Kakashi hands went into his hair as he leaned over. All he wanted to do was stop shaking.

He had few worries for the Nara boy, cached somewhere safely off the blustering coastline. It would conceal him until the kid put two and two together and made use of himself again.

Something flashed in his head, and after taste of the Lady. It showed him second images of Iruka. It revealed to him not his face, which was too dark. But it brightly blared raw and unchecked his pain.

“We'll go home.” He found himself muttering.

Sand was in his boots, sleeves, eyes, and deep inside his gloves. It itched like fire and he was scratching at it all making his white skin raw. Pausing, he let out a short laugh into the wind. This sound, the very sound Iruka complained he could never hear felt like letting some pain escape his body. But the jounin knew better. It was self-indulgent to whine or even if it was by yourself.

The sea was becoming angrier, gray waves crashing and splintering against the rocks, and whipping up into the darker sky. That was good. Powerful as he was, he couldn't command the sky to send down the real lightening whenever it happened to be useful. He stilled gripping at the edge of wet rock he was kneeling on. Fortunately, the vast expanse of churning water made an excellent stage for a lightning storm.

He hadn't even cleared the short span of white sand beach before a great jut of ragged cliffs separated him from the meandering cascade of rocks on the other side and the towering heap of bone. Leaping onto one steady foothold to another, he slowed and climbed to the very top of the ridge. The beach now had less white sand then it had the crumbled cliff face jutting out of the shore like teeth. Mawing and slanted, it invited him to fall right inside and be slowly gnawed by behemoth jaws, and teeth made of solidified earth, churned to glass and metal.

Kakashi never wandered on a mission. Each step he took within the labyrinth of the calcified maze was purposed. The creatures had been beached here, swept ashore by the natural forces of the ocean current, a gift of flesh and blood. Macabre shreds of flesh blew gently in the breeze, reminding him of festival banners. The smell was indescribable. Even his senses retracted at the acrid fumes. His lungs could push the air out but his stomach was a different story. Easily he shifted focus, away from physicality and the unseen target he’d come for.Iruka was here somewhere in this cavern of rotted flesh and angry spirits. Testing his weight against the skeletal framework, he set his foot against a jutting rib bone as tall as himself, and braced himself to launch deeper into the gloom. The bones shifted and groaned, sending an eerie echo through the gaping mouth.

A shadow’s core was darkness but its nourishment was light. One did not exist without the other. Kakashi’s eyes adjusted immediately to the absence of the elements but his human parts would not be reliable in this place. A brief pained gasp signaled onset of the Sharingan. His living eye was now a weapon, able to rend time and space. This nebulous thing entrapping Iruka could run but it could not hide.

The skeletal remains formed a gruesome semblance of a ladder, winding deeper into the Earth’s bowels. Wet sand beneath him, hot air before him, the temperature increased the farther he traveled. Could Iruka have survived this? Half-mad and ill as he was, he was still a Leaf nin. Some leaves did thrive without the sun. He pushed on, fighting against his mind’s panic, intent on tracking the chakra to its source. The terrain was not even by far and the darkness shifted in swirls before him seeking to addle him. But he was not the Copy Nin for nothing.A distant flicker made his breath halt, an echo of a chakra not human. Light cannot play tricks where it doesn’t live but his altered vision intercepts a threat pulling him inward.

The creature before him breathed or at least a physical body retained the motion of air exchange even if the uneven guttural workings of his organs are not entirely at his command. Lungs heave irregularly in and out, unsteady bones crack and splinter. The Sharingan revealed several broken pieces encased within the abused network of muscle tissue but human bodies share much with trees. Damage them and they can still stand.

The man is beyond physical pain. His life blood runs freely down his arms, shining like oil, the scent wafting in Kakashi’s nostrils like vile incense.  
A wet slapping sound as his bloodied palm makes contact with the loose ground barely holding him up, a hunched, broken form groping blindly in the dark.  
Iruka. His Iruka. Weak and used. Kakashi’s heart began to thud loud enough for the beings present to notice him.

_He has come, Lord._

A wet sound rose from the tortured throat. A sound only in his mind that he recognized as his name.

_Kakashi?_

Kakashi waited for it to emerge. He could wait quite a long time, even if would surpasses the final quiver of Iruka's heart which, according to the Sharingan, still works somehow.

_This one has been claimed._

Kakashi choose not to respond to this.

_Without the Master's will, this husk will shrivel and return to dust._

He did not blink. Boasting is something he's heard before on the other end of a spear. Cornered opponents will say such things.

_This body held worth to you._

_Holds._ Kakashi corrected.

 

tbc


	11. The Sound of Thunder

Tenzo alighted on a boulder and breathed in the salt spray of the rising tide.

He hoped he was making progress by working on a few assumptions.

After being given his role in the ANBU, he was gradually shown that hunches could be invaluable. In his former life, Lord Danzo deemed subordinates with enough gall to make their own decisions as faulty; undesirable scraps to be discarded or re purposed. Nothing but mutinous thoughts that held no place in those buried and shrouded ranks. Tenzo had sometimes been subject to the brutal consequences of autonomy. Punishments he even thought he had wholly deserved. So as the boy named Kinoe he had quickly taught himself to ignore guesses and doubts entirely.

But that was the Root Foundation.

Tenzo shook it off and kept running.

The primary goal had been to immediately locate Iruka sensei and whomever (and whatever) had taken him from the village. Unfortunately, all he had at the moment was a familiar presence that had glimmered faintly and only that once when he'd emerged from the sea. Latching onto that strained thread he chose to abandon the first ordered initiative entirely. What he had decided all on his own was to instead locate Kakashi first. Leaping to another jumble of rocks, he had to steady himself briefly as his chakra sickeningly waned and surged with the surf. 

Assumptions. Hunches. The Copy Nin would have cheerfully called it a 'shot in the dark.' But that smug bastard also had the cursed luxury of the Sharingan.

With a cough, he righted himself as the dizziness passed.

The smooth face of a wind-scoured cliff was easily ascended and he was met with a relentless gale that was much harsher than below. From his new vantage point the view allowed him to see what lay ahead. It appeared to be more of the same dreary terrain he'd left behind. Tenzo's theory regarding the transportation jutsu wasn't all that complicated. He believed the team had all been scattered up and down the coastline. Like a child's game of marbles they had landed in different locations but all within a vicinity. Finding Kakashi was likely the best chance at reuniting them all. He hoped so anyway. None of them had a chance against that shadow thing one on one.

An abrupt shift in the wind distracted him. Glancing up, Tenzo studied the churn of low gray clouds that were beginning to dull into purple and black, deepening like a fresh bruise. Breathing faster he felt his skin tingle with gooseflesh. Something was coming.

With a gasp, he staggered backwards stunned.

A white hot spark of chakra had run electric down his spine and struck several more times before it stopped. It was chakra that wasn't his own. Tenzo smiled a little. Kakashi was near. Turning his attention quickly downward, he searched the path of the boulder littered beach. The shore curved out of sight behind another outcrop of cliff opposite the one he was crouched upon. The spark of chakra came again, weaker but with an undeniable sting that promised violence.

"Hold on. I'm-I'm coming..." he leapt into mid air and hit the sand running.

Reaching the turn in the cliffs, he frowned as the weather rapidly became even worse with a freezing rain coming in gusts off the thrashing sea. Looking worriedly overhead he saw the clouds were boiling and flickering with muted light; the air beginning to crackle with the telltale scent of ozone. Tenzo's jaw clenched as the rain splattered like needles against his face.

"Uh-oh..."

As soon as the words left his mouth it happened.

A sudden deafening rumble of thunder reverberated across the sky and against the cliff walls nearly sending Tenzo to the ground. Then the sky lit up. Not even a mile ahead, a jagged bolt of white lightening seared down and stuck making the earth shudder under his feet. It was an explosion, stone and debris shooting up into the sky in plumes. He stared as several more flashes split the sky open, so sizzling bright that he stumbled to one knee and threw an arm over his eyes. Blinking furiously he tried to rid the after images of lightening that had scored violet on his retinas. Lightening cracked again and again as he fought to see. Slowly lowering his arm he could barely make out where all the furious strikes had met land.

Despite the rain, billows of smoke were rising somewhere down the beach. Black and thick like enemy artillery had struck with the force of an offshore battleship. It spiraled and boiled orange flames upwards mixing with the still booming rumble of clouds.

Tenzo managed to close his mouth and start moving again.

 

 

It smelled incredibly strange.

Metallic. Or the bitter scent of burnt hair.

Tenzo skidded down a blackened dune on his side, wary of the flames still licking out from within a massive lopsided structure that had been reduced to almost nothing. He blinked up at the shower of red sparks in confusion. Whatever this place had been, he’d needed to send a wall of surf a few times over to completely quench the largest of the fires. It was a good thing the blaze was already dying down by the time he got there because his chakra levels were regretfully low. But now that the fire had been mostly doused the acrid smell of it kept hitting him like a hammer. Chakra weak, he sat panting in the sand willing himself to at least stay sitting up. Only then did it slowly dawn on him why the flames had receded so rapidly and why the place smelled that oddly.

His gloved hand slid through the scorched sand and found some melted into bizarre sculptures of glass. But he was more curious about a length of a charred splintered thing that he knew inherently wasn't wood. He gripped it.

It was a shard of a very large bone.

Tenzo's gaze went up uncertainly to the smoldering pile that had been blasted into gigantic teetering pieces.

"Huh." 

 

 

This wasn't the first abyss Tenzo had ever ventured into alone but it was, he considered, maybe one of the most outlandish.

Using some precious chakra he summoned some cooperative sea water to form a glistening tunnel to part a way through the hissing embers. He ventured through the maze of collapsed remains moving by the sputter of lingering fires of trapped driftwood and clumps of dry dune grass. It wasn't long until he'd walked far enough to know he must be completely underground. There was nothing to detect but the whistle of wind flowing through the wreckage and the overpowering smell of smoke. It had to be those wards the Lady had warned them about that blocked sensory techniques. The Shadow's servants had used them in the village to throw the scent off of their presence and they had certainly set them here in this dank burrow. All he felt was his own keen caution. And a sick feeling that there might not be anyone down here but the slain.

"UHhh.."

Tenzo swung around hefting a kunai. The distraction caused him to lose his grip on the thin tunnel of water and it collapsed softly in a curtain around him.

"Who's there?" Tenzo demanded.

There was no answer besides a feeble shift of debris and weak coughing. Approaching carefully he had no desire to face this shadow and end up like he had the last time. He didn't have enough power to even try. So he decided to trust his newest hunch. This all mighty Shadow probably wouldn't be the type of adversary likely to become haplessly trapped and whimpering under a pile of rubble.

"...help..me..."

Not recognizing the male voice, Tenzo immediately backed up in the cramped space.

"How could He...," it was ragged sob. "How...How could He..."

Tenzo knelt down and peered under the heavy fall of white slabs. He cocked his head and studied the odd glint of the wavering light sparkling wetly in a pair of anguished eyes.

"M-Master and Ko... they left me behind..."

Pure black onyx eyes.

He really didn't want to do it. Especially on the high probability that his body was going to switch off completely if he wasn't mindful. Tenzo pushed his Wood Release anyway, just enough to drag the blubbering kid out from under the heavy debris. While he was there, he did a cursory search for any other bodies but found nothing. He could be grateful for that. 

Silently he hauled the now captive out to the beach and ungracefully propped him up against a rock. He certainly hadn’t expected to be saving this particular life today. Tenzo was vaguely ashamed to feel relieved that this boy had a fractured leg and a broken arm. It made for a troublesome escape and easier to tie him up before Tenzo's body did exactly what he feared it might do.

The jounin passed out cold.

 

 

 

 

Kakashi was aware that he was dreaming.

Panic soaked through him, knowing that usually meant he would be plummeted unwillingly into the past. Torments he revisited when awake and seated at the base of the Memorial Stone were completely different in sleep. Remembrances in daylight and bird song were not as horrific as being forced to see, hear and touch. To physically return to those moments was more terrible than any egregious wound ever inflicted on him. Return and experience it all again and again and again...

The hushed cry of a nin next to him taking a fatal hit. Dwindling weapons and growing enemy numbers. The contorted body of his father on the floor.

But to his bewildered surprise he was not faced with any of the usual visions.

Somehow he wasn't struggling to free Obito's crushed body. Rin's eyes weren't locked onto his as the Chidori ripped her apart from the inside out. For some reason he was back in the Hidden village. As most dreams illogically unfold, he then knew that it was just prior to the mission to find Iruka. It was when he had been waiting impatiently for his team to be assembled in the middle of the red swirl of forest. Unknowingly trapped within a jutsu the Hokage had crafted to keep him confined until she called on him.

And just like before someone unexpected had arrived.

_"Hello, Anko."_

_It was windy in this trans-fix soaked twilight of Tsunade's._

_"You're on the team?" Kakashi had been mildly surprised._

_"Couldn't pay me."_

_He twisted his hitai-ate that she misplaced at the side of his head by her neatly sliced smack. It was whispered among the ranks that the kunoichi's attempts at affection often tended to hurt. It dully did the same in the dream, a retelling echo of remembered pain._

_She was giving him a considering look. "I have something for you."_

_"Really."_

_"You may need it," she said tossing him a small old flaking scroll, brittle sheets rolling off and fluttering._

_Kakashi studied it while slowly turning it over in his hands._

_Anko snorted. "You don't trust me?"_

_"Some of the time."_

_"You are welcome."_

Kakashi blinked open his uncovered eye.

He was immediately aware of being in a seated slump against a wall. It was difficult to discern a good visual, his sight too addled to make out anything more than a few feet away. Rolling his head weakly to the side, Kakashi looked down at the fragile coil of the scroll still clutched in his hand. The parchment had turned to delicate ash with its use, gray and peeling like a fallen wasp's nest. The vision of Anko and this gift had already begun to fade into a blur leaving only remnants of doubt behind. It wasn't any shock to find he was having trouble breathing. Which made it very obvious that any significant voluntary movement was pretty much out of the question. Memory returned gradually as he shut his eyes to concentrate. Endless stretches of a dismal winter beach. Meandering icy cliffs. The long dead behemoth he had discovered and-

And then, in the pale flash of a moment, he had found Iruka.

Him and two others that must have been the nin who had been waiting camouflaged in the woods that night. He recalled rage at the sight of the blank-eyed men who had Iruka entangled in wire just like the very last time he'd seen him. Suffocating behind golden seals on the forest floor. A rage that still simmered molten under the surface wanting to burst through his skin. His memory went a little fuzzy after he had found them in that abysmal hole.

Other than using the spell transcribed in the scroll his world now was just snatches of confusion and noise.

This particular scroll and its ilk were typically used as a tether for outside energy. Used to deplete. Sometimes to provide. At the right moment even to mimic. But Kakashi hadn't used it for any of the various ways one might in the face of battle. He had funneled every drop of chakra he possessed into the infused paper to hop a ride on whatever trick the Shadow or its followers were using to flee. A tether that allowed him to follow the thing before it could fully fade into the ether and vanish.

It had apparently worked.

Eye finally coming back to focus, he looked around and knew the place was very far from the bone cave he had hitched from. The air that touched his face was warm compared to what he'd left behind and what he saw seemed to be a normal empty room one would find in any ordinary house. The lack of any doors or windows was notable but he was much more interested in the glowing chakra wire that was wound around his extremities, torso and pretty much everything else except his face. Testing the fibers, he understood that they did not bind him to anything however, they were certainly hindering the return of his depleted energy. What had been bound to the wall behind him were his hands which he could only tug to his sides. So much for hand signs.

Kakashi growled in infuriated frustration.

So the scroll worked just fine but the Shadow had been aware of its forceful pull at its retreating back. And then the thing had done precisely what he himself might have done to address that kind of problem-- ditch the unwanted hitchhiker in a jail cell fit for a shinobi. Kakashi frowned as that rationalization lead to another question. Why not just kill him and be done with it? That unknown made Kakashi slightly confused and being confused was irritating.

However, his annoyance quickly evaporated with just one intrusion from his memory.

Iruka. 

He had _seen_ Iruka. He had been still breathing. There was a cinder colored mask covering his face but it had been him without doubt. Kakashi had been so close. Almost close enough to have touched Iruka's shaking outstretched hand. Making a tired fist, the scroll softly disintegrated and fluttered around him like snow. He realized slowly that he was beginning to feel something else besides rage and despair for a change. A welling of sensation grew deep in his chest that hadn't been there for quite some time. It didn't even dim when the chakra wire’s glow intensified by some unseen command. Agonizing pulses shot through him where the twining made contact.

Kakashi grinned wryly under his mask.

He felt hope.

 

 

 

 

It was startling to discover that the sun was down.

Tenzo frantically made to roll over on his side wondering how much time had passed. With a wave of nausea he started spitting out mouth fulls of ash and fishy sand. Trying not to heave he looked around to make sure his captive was where he left him. Considering Tenzo was still alive to finish his forced nap he figured that was the case.

His breath caught in his throat.

The black eyed kid was gone.

"Jeeze," a low whistle sounded from behind. "What the heck happened here?"

Getting shakily to his feet, kunai drawn, his body screamed in protest when he automatically attempted to summon non-existent chakra. But it was all unnecessary. With a gasp, he let his weapon drop to his side to stick neatly into the ground. This was not the enemy.

"Did a bomb go off or something?" Shikamaru had his hands on hips as he admired the smoking orange-lit heap of bones. "It woke me up."

Not entirely sure of what he meant by that, Tenzo breathed a sigh of relief as he brushed wet dirt off the front of his uniform. "I found one of them.” He reported. “He was inside that....thing." It was good to see the young chunin alive and apparently unharmed, but his anger flared as the weight of letting the captive slip away settled on him. "But I...I-"

"It's fine," Shikamaru gestured over his shoulder with his chin. "You sure did some damage on that guy. Didn't think that was your style."

Tenzo suddenly noticed a strip of inky black traveling from a pool sourced at the Nara's feet. It extended a few meters away to a slumped figure in dark clothes.

"Sun is gone and it was too cloudy anyway." the chunin shrugged. "The fires left over are enough for now."

"Is he sleeping?" Tenzo couldn't help but ask. "And I didn't injure him by the way. I dug him out like that."

"Lucky him," Shikamaru said thoughtfully. "And no, that isn't sleep. That's from the back of my fist. He wouldn't stop _crying_ ," he made a slight face of disgust. "He kept beggin' for someone named Ko. Is that his mother or something?"

Tenzo had not the foggiest. "If he's out, don't waste your energy."

"But if he's working with that shadow-"

"It's ok," Tenzo wanted to sound reassuring but what he really needed was for at least one of them to have some chakra in reserve. "There's two of us now."

He watched the inky tendril withdraw and return to the Nara.

It took several moments to realize Shikamaru had gone quiet and was looking to him expectantly.

"No," he softly answered. "That one was the only living thing I found in there."

The chunin considered this information before speaking.

"What do we do now Captain Yamato?"

Tenzo sighed. "We wake him up."

 

 

 

It did not take much to unravel the bindings meant to keep him there. Kakashi had made a habit of reserving what materials his enemies sought to neutralize him with. It made for good research later or at the very least an annoyingly cunning punchline the moment he caught up with them. It always interested him to study the things his enemies believed could hold him.

It was Iruka that had forced him to ignore the pain of liberating himself, demolishing the cage where he’d been assigned to die, out of sight and out of mind.  
Iruka—his more than comrade—was waiting for him; clinging to what shreds remained of his life force. He would not fail. The remnants of the chakra-infused rope were easy to re-channel, fueling his own diminished reserves.

In the time it took to exhale, Kakashi was gone.

 

 

 

 

A few forceful slaps to the face and a liberal dousing of freezing water made the black eyed kid wide awake and ready for a conversation. They’d even allowed some introductions. This servant of the shadow was called Maneki.

"Master left me," the boy wept. "Ko left me."

"Why would he do that? Shikamaru asked. "Doesn't he... they... need you?"

"Master needed my chakra to escape!"

"So why didn't he take your sorry ass with him?"

Tenzo grimly thought of the three dark eyed men that had slit their own throats after surrendering their chakra to aid Iruka to break out of the prison ward. This Maneki seemed equally as disposable. Perhaps he’d not had the opportunity to commit honorable suicide or maybe he’d simply lacked the will to die in the wreckage as expected. This was good. This was something Tenzo could use.

"Where is Iruka Umino?"

"Master isn't whole yet. The Reliquary took all of my chakra to take all three to get away- _aH!..._ "

Shikamaru surprised Tenzo by slamming his boot down hard into the shoulder of the boy’s mangled arm. Shoved back into the sand, the kid stuttered out a sharp cry, his tears renewed with indignity and fresh pain.

" _AHG! AH! aH! ...stoppit!..._ "

"Stop babbling and think real hard," the chunin hadn't raised his voice. "Where is Iruka sensei?"

Tenzo hadn't forgotten that Iruka wasn't just important to a select few. He briefly wondered what this current violent situation would be if Naruto were here in Shikamaru’s stead. Just the thought of it made his current headache worse. The broken youth’s words garbled from him, breathing rapid from fear and shock.

" _M-Master got away-Uh! Please- They are gone! They-_ "

"Wait, wait," Tenzo interrupted. "You said escape before. Escape the fire?"

"W-What? _No!_ No simple fire could harm my Master! We sought retreat from the lunatic that found us!” Maneki gasped, eyes squeezed tight as Shikamaru bore his weight down deeper. Somehow, the bird still managed to sing. “W-What is worse? Destruction or the one that can create it!"

The chunin and jounin exchanged a look. Lunatic. Destruction. That sounded about right.

"Master fled when th-that man b-brought down the lightening...and..and-"

"So, did your Master take this... so called “lunatic” with him?"

The boy named Maneki looked confused, eyes still pleading. "I…I don't know! Everything was breaking apart and burning-"

"But you said your Master took three?" Leaning into it, Shikamaru ground the heel of his boot harder into the joint between arm and shoulder. "Three alive?"

" _AHhhuh! **STOP!**_ " the fathomless eyes squeezed shut in agony. "P-Please.... _please!_...I...must..must return to the Master!"

Against all reason Tenzo was starting to feel a little sorry for the kid. Still loyal even after being abandoned to die. He couldn't be that much older than the chunin fully prepared to break the rest of his bones.

"Answer and he'll stop," Tenzo advised calmly. "Were they alive?"

Shikamaru frowned down at the captive and tapped the tip of a kunai on the boy's bloody nose in warning.

"Y-Yes! Alive!" Maneki looked back and forth between them in miserable panic. "The Reliquary, the food, and Ko!"

Tenzo went cold. "...Food?"

"We found him here," Maneki quickly nodded. "You Leaf are perfect food... s-so much chakra..."

"Genma," Shikamaru said softly. "He means Genma."

Tenzo considered the glistening black eyes imploring them both and was suddenly very thankful Kakashi hadn't hung around. This pathetic display bleeding in the sand would have been wasted on the fury that had fueled and fed off that storm. 

"Listen carefully."

Maneki stilled, wincing at the boot still grinding into his shoulder.

"We'll help you," he said.

"W-What?"

"We will help return you to your Master.".

Shikamaru looked sharply in his direction.

Maneki swallowed. "Why would you do that?" Dread and hope held equal dominance in that voice. "You-You just want His food!"

As expected Shikamaru had caught right on. "Think of it as an exchange."

Maneki looked even more pained than he already was.

"You get back with your Ko and your Master." the chunin went on. "And we get the uh... food."

"And the Reliquary," Tenzo added.

The onyx eyes stared disbelieving for a moment before Maneki started making a coughing wheeze that poorly resembled laughter."That one!" he breathed out in another strained fit. "Y-You'll never have that one!"

"Why not?"

"Because that one... that one is becoming _Master_..." he smiled through his tears. "The chosen has been claimed... so we brought him here to be completed. We did what Master desired... and we pleased Him as much- as much as He wanted..."

_Wanted._

Shikamaru was too green to know what that could mean.

Fizzled chakra burned in Tenzo's muscles unable to create the sharp shape he had involuntary willed his hand to be. But he didn't need Wood Style to break a neck.

"Captain?"

_Pleased Him._

"Ko and me, we can touch the Master through the Reliquary," his gaze became vacant in elation. "Y-Your Umino doesn't like it much. But we like it. Mostly because he tries to fight us."

Tenzo felt everything fall away.

"The truth is, Master wants it even more when Umino resists," it was a rushed confession. "All that desperation and-and fear makes the exchange of essence flow easier and He becomes ever stronger- **AH!** "

For the first time Tenzo had to be restrained by a team mate.

 

 

 

Iruka could not remember so much light.

Was it light? His senses had long ago abandoned him and now as the world began seep back onto focus each one of his nerves sang with the assault. Air had become so precious, it danced before his eyes as something seen, billowing fumes that danced out of his reach. He could vaguely recall tasting nothing but the coppery tang of blood. At some time he’d aspirated, choking while the creature inside of him ignored his struggle. Something dangerous had caught the Shadow's attention.

Iruka was dully surprised to find the creature had become frantic and afraid. He felt he should be alarmed too, but he found himself numb to the howling bristled being housed uninvited in his body.

All he wanted to do is go home.

Home. That word was no longer a place to him, no longer a hazy conjuring of possessions and memories; smells and sights. Home was now a someone. Home was pale hair and pale skin. Home was safe.

A man was there.

As much as he tried and fought through the fog in his head, Iruka’s mind could not quite recapture a name. But then the light grew so blinding it began to spread and consume everything it touched. Iruka let out a sigh and simply waited for it to destroy him. There was nothing but a calm as he faded away into the scorching brilliance. Any fate that awaited had to be better than here.

Iruka closed his eyes and hoped.

 

  
tbc


	12. Break Through the Border Line

_Ko and Maneki had prayed since childhood. Knees together, hands twined. They would discover such a place to keep their Lord from harm. A forgotten shore by a ship less ocean known for its savage and unyielding tempests. So untrod by man that it kept the gaping jaws of a mighty derelict secret._

__

__

The fathers, the elders, their mentors relentlessly gave them lease, it took pain. 

So much pain. 

When they had finally wandered is was for their mission. They found the beast's gut eviscerated by time, and Ko had no doubt that the magnificent animal had purposely sacrificed itself for just this purpose. This creature long ago filled these barren cliffs with a deep song in its death throes. A bellowing hymn forlornly welcoming the Master's undeniable return. Where the rest of the world might shudder at its decay, Ko saw nothing but a garden before the thaw. 

_It was a fairy tale made for no one._

 

 

Ko knew right then when the Lightening arched and the ground Cracked that was indeed the end of it all. The sacrifice of his brothers. And it all was going to be for nothing. The fathers, the elders, their mentors and rest all relentlessly gave them lease. It all been wasted.

What was they said about fairy tales?

As the earth opened under his feet Ko felt himself begin to fall.

The void that had swallowed him whole was hungry for him.

So this was it. An eternal plummet.

If there was a punishment for such complete unfathomable failure he could not dream of anything more fitting. No release in death or final breath just the stretch of forever and ever to curse him for not fulfilling the one thing he had been born to do. Ko would accept this fate even though his heart withered in sadness.

As one of the youngest two young servants there had only been three tasks.

Ready a place for Him to regather strength. The second was to deliver the Reliquary so the Master may regain. The third was to serve Him when he emerged and Walked Again.

They had found the Reliquary.

It had been delivered to the shelter of the birthing place.

But then everything went wrong.

Something powerful, in return, had found them.

Ko's grasping hands felt no wind as he fell and fell.

Plummeting through the abyss, Ko clawed at his body unable to feel the tears on skin. His sorrow shredding and ripping. Damning Ko forever for what he'd been unable to protect.

He should have expected Kakashi. That name.

That wrathful Being had swiftly traveled through their wards and eerily navigated every maze of traps as if given a map. And it was not until the masked man materialized like a phantom in the firelight that he realized the terrible extent of his misjudgment. The consequences exceeded all ordinary bounds in size or amount or degree.

The Master had rose up to meet the Threat.

Those powers had clashed.

But the sanctity of that place had been dismantled by lightning. Centuries of work had been utterly takenawayburnannilost lostpleasemasternonononoplease into--

 

 

 

Grit crumbled off Tenzo's metaled gloved fist after one more under cut to a stone wall.

He calmed somewhat after a small while. There was even the chance that he could think straight again. But no. He was not done quite yet. Two more strikes just as hard and an entire cliff face came sliding down. A third went right into the ground and he finally heard his heart begin to even. Tenzo had been considering forming a solid clone to punch instead of rock but he didn't want to waste what energy he had. Briefly he wondered what Ibiki would make of that if he included that detail in a psych evaluation report.

"Captain?"

"Yeah, coming." Shaking off some dust, Tenzo wandered back into the camp's circle of firelight. "All here."

Shikamaru looked him up and down a bit more than nervous.

"I'm fine." Tenzo affirmed, not liking the questioning look. 

As his former sensei always said, nothing did more wonders for the head than getting back to basics and immediate concerns. Fortunately, hunger was thankfully an easy one to fix. Shikamaru had been feigning any need to eat until he saw Tenzo pull out their soggy soldier pills. After one look at shreds of the waterlogged hard bread the Captain also had on his person, the chunin grabbed a few of the pellets with a small nod of thanks.

"Are you sure yer fine?"

Taking one himself, he cleared his throat. "About before," he mumbled sheepishly. "Thanks for, um..." It was embarrassing how easily the nara's ying release had snared him. It was even more embarrassing that it had to be done at all. Two times already this chunin had had to catch his slip ups. "Just, I appreciate it."

"I figured you'd wanna keep him alive," the kid's shoulders hitched in a humorless laugh. "Ya know. Till Kakashi sensei gets to ask all his likes and dislikes."

Tenzo was torn with the prospect of wanting that to happen or not. Speaking about keeping things alive, he turned with a sigh to the kid sprawled in the sand watching them in abject terror.

"Hungry?" it was a lot to force that ask.

Tenzo offered one of the pills in the palm of his hand to Maneki. The boy looked at the lump distrustfully and sniffed as if he'd been presented with a dead rat. With a slight squeeze to the kid's shoulder the mouth opened wide enough to shove the vitamin rich glob down his throat.

Shikamaru was bravely rolling another pill around in his mouth not seeming to mind the taste.

"I hope you're not going to do what I think you are."

Tenzo released the captive's nose and mouth satisfied that the second and third pill had been mostly swallowed. It reminded him of giving medicine to the cat the Lady briefly owned.

"Yeah," he answered as he brushed off his hands. "I sure am."

"Look, you shouldn't have even wasted a match. But you used chakra just to heal this bastard." His eyes were misting in downed rage.

Great. The nara figured it out. "I didn't heal much." Tenzo reasoned. And truth be told he felt unprofessional trying to murder their one and only lead. "Didn't you want him to stop crying?"

"Let's say he can even do it," there was a sideways look at the servant gagging on solider pills. "We get a place to start  
looking. And then what? You get chakra exhaustion and the game is over."

"Don't worry."

Tenzo was well aware that not many knew how deep his reservoirs ran or how quickly they could be replenished. Especially in a place where Earth met Water.

"And what about Kaka-sensei?" Shikamaru continued. "Who knows what kinda condition he's in after...," he kicked some at some bones that fell apart and sparked."...after all _this_."

"You saw the size of that storm. He doesn't just channel that kind of weather, it was feeding him too."

"So yer sayin?"

"I'm saying he's probably better off than we are."

If he's alive Tenzo dismally added to himself. "If this guy gets recharged he can point us towards where his master went. Where maybe all of them went," he emphasized. "Those servants were drawn to the thing. They must have been doing it for days outside of the village."

"What going on?" Maneki shifted uncomfortably in his binds with eyes narrowing in harried suspicion. "What are you talking about?"

"Something useful."

"You want me as a compass?" the black eyes were flustered as he chewed at his lower lip. " What if..What if... I could-  
_ah!_ "

He started when Tenzo leaned over to grab his chin. Since Tenzo could remember he had been aware that his eyes were disconcerting. An odd shape. Maybe an off color. They were sometimes described as calm if someone was attempting to be kind to him. But much more often than not anyone who returned his gaze never kept it for long. He's wasn't sure what it was they saw. Most of his life he avoided his reflection to find out just why.

However, what he did know was that whatever it was he had, he knew he how to use it.

"If," he asked carefully, letting the onyx stare focus on his from inches away."...you could do what?"

"What if I-I could do more than that?" he practically gasped. "Way more! I could _bring_ you there!"

"Where's there?"

"I-Don't know..... yet! I don't know yet!" he hurried when he saw Tenzo's brow furrow. "I meant yet!"

"You can do that?"

"If-If you gave a little more juice. The good stuff I mean," he snorted in Shik's direction. "Not _his_. Yours."

Shikamaru considered the ground for several moments. "I need a few minutes."

"Eh, sure?"

The chunin sat right down where he was standing and folded his hands over crossed legs. Thumbs pressed together and fingertips touching, he shut his eyes and lowered his chin.

Tenzo could almost physically feel the snap of the mediation take the chunin over. It it was were he were no longer present, untetered from this beach and maybe even the sky and ground around it. Digging in his pouch for any remains of dried fruit he took a seat next to him.

A piece of salty apple burned on his tongue.

Tenzo blinked large almond eyes deliberately slowly liking how the servant shivered in response. It was almost disappointing, Naruto usually wet himself in fright when he took it that far.

"I can?" the kid assured, his bleeding lower lip trembling. "I'll do whatever you want."

"For your shadow."

"For you?"

Kakashi, the one had never once flinched away from Tenzo's eyes, had assured him that that intimidation move was one of his best. As the kid started to spill just exactly how he could further help the mission along, to his chagrin, Tenzo couldn't help but agree with his sensei.

It did work like a charm.

* * *

Ko's body suddenly struck something so hard he thought his spine might have snapped in two.

His lungs wheezed in air when he was capable again.

Stunned, he scrambled to orient himself, hands flying blindly around him trying understand what he'd hit. Stark fear, pure and cold, froze him in place as pain began to seep into his limbs from the impact. It was if he'd fallen from a great height onto something with an even flat surface. A great height. His mind spun in horror with what may lay at the bottom of that suffocating infinity. Laying there waiting, he heard nothing but a silence to greet him. Feeling his face, he hissed at his cut lip and a hot wetness running from his ringing ear.

The smear of his vision revealed that he was no longer in the dark.

Crouched in a cold sweat, his chest heaving, Ko had one hand braced against the side of his bruised head and the other pressed to the ground between his knees.

The clattering in his skull was beginning to recede.

It taken a few minutes to realized he wasn't about to start falling again. A dizzying drop through nothing and no where had seemed to have ended with this abrupt bone jarring stop. The ground under his hand was a puzzling wooden and polished floor. And now that he could see even better, there was too much light. The make of his clan's eyes didn't do very well in anything much brighter than oil lamps and it forced him to squint. He could make out a long and tall chamber devoid of any people or furniture. It told not much other than he was no longer in the cave.

Was this... death?

No. This was no realm of afterlife. He breathed in the stale air and knew it. Heart stuttering in his chest he realized the possible implications of what that might mean. A tentative relief struck so great it threatened his despair.

Was this... Was this the work of his Lord?

There might have been a way He had mustered enough power to have brought them to this place. Perhaps what was left of that elite with the senbon had sufficed no matter how unlikely. As weak as Master was in the current stage of transformation had He really saved them from that pale demon that had slung down the skies?

Stumbling to a stand, he limped to the one and only door. His black glove looked too dark on the clean frame as he slid it open carefully. Peering inside there was nothing to find but yet another room just as large.

"...Master...?" his voice sounded small the big space.

Nothing but motes of dust met him.

Ko fidgeted with the knowledge that he had no idea where he was. He thought himself privy to his clan's safe houses and strong holds but he'd ever seen or heard about this one before. Trust his clan for hoarding their secrets kept now in death. The absence of his constant companion brought an unexpected brush of worry. At least that fool was always in sight or at least a persistently tugging at his mind. And if Ko were here, surely the other servant was as well.

"Mankei? Call out!"

Another door on the opposite side of the room led out into a long hall that he could not see the end off in either direction. Was the idiot playing games?

"Answer me damn you!"

He'd never been alone in the entire span of his years. There were always his brothers or at least their thoughts that wound with his. After they were gone the gap was filled with the chaotic push and pull of his Lord Himself.

Ko jerked his attention back behind him when he finally heard something.

It was not Maneki but something even more welcome. Faint at first, it sounded like someone slowly tearing a piece of paper. Until grew louder and louder. The sound was joined by a violent vibration that reached through his legs and body, causing the hairs to rise on the back of his neck.

Ko felt him smile as the sound, his cut lip making it lopsided.

The sensations were being proceeded by the enormous rush of an arriving presence. A wind picked up, gusting like the onslaught of an on coming train from a tunnel. It was an entity who's contours Ko knew as well as his prayer books from front to back. And to his amazement it was some how much more powerful than he could have expected. Even more finely nuanced as if it had somehow gained massive chi in a feat that should have half extinguished his Master with even the effort. Ko could not wait to ask how the Master had managed to save them while in such a delicate state. The praise and bouts of adoration were already to burst from his lips when the words suddenly died in his throat. The presence's growing essence, now closer, was not exactly what he'd first perceived.

Ko frowned.

What was coming was not the Master.

At least not entirely.

 

 

Kakashi had been fairly certain the house he was in did not actually exist.

His cell dissolved easily enough with a 'release' but the halls he walked now still remained solid and sustainable. Even so, as soon as he broke out off the sealed room's genjutsu and made some distance he formed another 'release' just in case.

It didn't take long to realize that the never ending hallways bore nothing but more doors to countless empty rooms. All meant to discourage and disorient. Kakashi signed another variation for 'release' that the Sannin had taught him.

There had a great deal of warning of not using it because of dire circumstance. Or was it injury? Kakashi couldn't recall what exactly Master Jiraiya had specified but he wasn't supposed to it unless he had to.

He found out why a few seconds after he made the signs.

He let an out an involuntary but hard stuttered cry when the hand forms ended with a fire hot flash up his arms. Well, that hurt. Looking around warily, he grinned a half grin. An unfamiliar corridor suddenly appeared where there had been a solid wall previously. But his grin faded as he reconsidered.

"Strange using all this now...," he whispered to the shadow beast wondering if it was listening. "After all this time."

Gripping a kunei tightly by the hilt the question began to nag at him all the more. A sustained genjutsu of this magnitude needed precise control that the shadow had never shown before. It was a rare technique that could have made all of this mess faster and much easier for the thing's servants. But it wasn't possible that it have grown this powerful so suddenly. Especially in just the short time he had found it cowering in its den. A sweet breeze suddenly met his face. Moving cautiously forward he saw at the hallway's end an open door with yellowed evening light and green grass just past the threshold. Cocking his head, he listened to the cheerful sounds of bird's singing back and forth in the waving trees beyond. Listening to the very familiar twilight sounds and smelling the air he was slightly bewildered realize he knew this place. If his mind wasn't racing he could have maybe produced the address. _Konoha._

Stepping out into the sunlight he surveyed the rolling hills that surrounded the very small hovel of a house behind him. Stepping forward he found himself unable to continue any farther. As if this creation had never been expected to be used in any real way other than for show. He hadn't been counting on just how deep the genjutsu of this prison went.

It wasn't the shadow thing that was nurturing and bolstering this illusion.

But if not, then who exactly was?

 

* * * 

Ko was seeing and hearing things he couldn't make sense of.

A red searing line began to draw and rip itself haphazardly across the ceiling above his head. Blinding him even further, it split and yawed open grotesquely like a mouth. There was something coming out of it.

Ko leapt back as a body dropped limply, falling the distance from the vaulted wooden beams and landing in a lifeless thump out in the middle of the room. As the maw snapped shut, another slash appeared and grew in its place. It elongated and contorted, spewing out another figure, this one struggling as it finally broke free and tumbled with a loud groan onto the floor. Many more much smaller fissures suddenly exploded open all at once, spitting loose streams of orange cinders pouring down in a slurry of salt water along with chunks of blistering bone. They were too large to squeeze through the tight fissures, straining until tears of space all suddenly sealed all at once with a whipping sucking sound. The remains of the cave.

Knocked back onto his hands, Ko panted as the cold sea water soaked his trousers and hot embers sizzled and blackened as they landed on his drenched skin.

Ko was stilled by the ragged coughing.

His mind reeled with despair that his Master was wounded or may have been damaged from the effort it took to get here.

But the Reliquary was wide awake.

Why now? Why were they interrupted in the midst an unstable combination of both his Lord and the Shinobi. Maneki and Ko were under control of the process of creating a perfect shell to house their Master. But the delicate process had been in a prepared den, crafted, and molded for them to deal with any sort of unfortunate birth pains. But now that place was destroyed. Shattered and left behind.

The Master had surely brought them all here to a new haven. However, studying the man on the floor, he wasn't quite sure if it was his Lord at the reigns at the moment. Their consciousnesses flickering like the candles had in the caves, back and forth as the Master's form matured.

Whom ever it was sat up on his elbows and looked up at him. Ko studied the face smeared with soot and clothing emitting a soft steam. The ebony of Master's horned mask was laying by the chunin's side along with the stone bit gag. Ko grit his teeth when he saw the mask had a crack running down it's center and the gag's leather strap ripped in two.

The Reliquary was supporting himself by his elbows, breathing hard, blinking through the dark hair hanging in his face.

Umino stood up slowly with no effort. Glancing down the mask that lay at his feet he picked it up to study it. The confused look on his face turned to Ko.

"This isn't mine."

Ko swallowed unsure what to say. The vessel looked unreasonably healthy.

"I-I know you."

That tone, that way the word's played with that Fire country accent. It was Umino.

The chunin usually asked who _he_ was. The repeated question used to make him laugh to himself when the Reliquary would ask it over and over. The begging frantic edge to the question when Ko's cool flesh met burning skin as the Master worked through taking away piece by piece. But now this new even voice was missing its desperation and it made him nauseous.

"Where is your friend?" Umino asked.

Ko had been wondering about that himself. "He's here." he had to be. Somewhere in this house, dropped out of thin air like he had been.

Ko squeezed his eyes shut.

"I heard him screaming," Umino held a hand to his chest.

"You seem to remember quite a few things."

Umino turned his full attention to him.

"...your eyes," the voice ventured.

Ko's chest heaved. That tone, that way the word's played with that Fire country accent. It was Umino. But again Ko paused. The energy currently flowing off him waves was no after affect of their violent rushed transport. It felt like something very different-

"What's happening to your eyes?"

Ko realized he had drawn his knees up and was slowly sliding up to a stand against the wall. A hand went to his face touching the soft flesh beneath his eye and found wetness. Looking down at his black gloved hand he suddenly felt the creep of humiliation.

"They're are bleeding," Umino said unnecessarily.

"You used Maneki," Ko muttered. "Drained him _killed him_ so you could take us here."

Umino appeared worried and maybe even concerned. The knowledge of any kind of pity coming from this nin made Ko make a tight fist. Ko barked a laugh and ground his knuckles into his oozing eyes knowing the ghastly sight of it would upset the damn chunin even more. He wasn't about to tell this shell that it was how his people cried.

 _People._ He was the only one left now.

It was as if Umino had heard him. The Reliquary was vaguely afraid.

"Master would have never done that!!" Ko's sight was blurring. "WE were made to serve him as He Walks! Not in our deaths! WE are special!"

"But something was going to hurt him."

"Yes!" Ko rarely raised his voice but he was shouting his throat raw. "That shinobi was going to damage the Master and-"

"Your shadow was going to damage Kakashi." Umino corrected, his worried expression vanishing into something that held malice. "I couldn't let that happen."

Ko blinked.

"I had to keep Kakashi safe." He started to look around at his surroundings and returned to appearing a little lost. "I put him somewhere safe."

"Kakashi." Ko spat. "All you ever did was say that name. Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi ...I had to smother you to make you stop the incessant babble!"

Umino was looking around him at the room.

Ko had to ask. "W-Where is my Master?"

"He's right here," Umino tapped his forehead. "I told him that silence is best for now."

"W-Why?"

"Because it got what he wanted."

Ko sagged further under the look.

"We are One."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Jink!


End file.
